Area Sacra Di Largo Argentina
Today we walked to see cats, that and an archeologically significant area. Largo di Torre Argentina is the old Campus Martius, a publicly owned area of ancient Rome. It has four Roman Republican temples and the rains of Pompey’s Theatre. For 5 euro, you can walk inside of it and get a close up view of the many cats that live in amongst the ruins.
Fontana Della Tartarughe
Next, we walked to have a coffee by this Turtle Fountain in the Sant’Angelo Rione. The fountain was built between 1580 and 1588 by the architect Giacomo della Porta and the sculptor Taddeo Landini. The original fountain design called for 4 dolphins on the upper vasque but these were removed due to low water pressure and the turtles added. There is also a legend about this fountain. A duke (Duke Muzio Mattei) who had lost all his money to gambling commissioned the fountain to be built overnight to win the trust the wealthy father of the woman he wanted to marry and apparently it worked. According to historians, it took about 7 years to make this fountain.
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| The feet of the 4 men rested on dolphins |
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| there hands reaching up to turtles |
