Trevi Fountain

The camera stands on the terrace above the basin, at the point where Piazza di Trevi steps down to the water. Filling the view is the fountain itself: Oceanus in the central niche, riding a shell chariot drawn by two sea horses, one placid and one rearing, each led by a triton. The fountain is not free-standing. It is built into the whole front of Palazzo Poli, which is why the architecture and the sculpture read as a single object roughly eighty-six feet high and a hundred and sixty wide. Turn away from the water and the piazza is small, cobbled and usually crowded - a wall of ochre and cream buildings, a pharmacy sign, souvenir stands. The church with the paired columns across the square is Santi Vincenzo e Anastasio a Trevi.

Before the 1954 film Three Coins in the Fountain, this was a largely overlooked corner of Rome. The fountain was designed by Nicola Salvi and finished in 1762, eleven years after his death, and it is the largest Baroque fountain in the city. It marks the end point of the Aqua Virgo, an aqueduct that has been bringing water into Rome from about eight miles away since 19 BC - the water crossing the basin in front of you has been arriving at roughly this spot for two thousand years.

Around fifteen hundred euros a day are thrown into the basin and collected each night; the money goes to Caritas. The fountain sits within a few minutes' walk of much of central Rome: the Spanish Steps and Via Condotti to the north, the Pantheon and Piazza Navona to the west, and the Quirinal Palace immediately uphill.