The Nasoni: the most famous fountains in Rome

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Among Rome’s symbols there are surely the “Nasoni”, simple cast iron fountains spread all around the city.

In this hot summer weather only the thought of these famous fountains can refresh us and it makes us happier of being romans.
Yes, because one of these simple but at the same time important particularities it’s only ours among all the european capitals.

How many times, walking around Rome as tourists, we have regret to never find fountains with water fresh as those we have in Rome (and above all for free)?

But we should proceed with order: the relationship between Rome and water it’s always been privileged, since when Romans were building kilometres of aqueducts to allow the inhabitants of enjoing water in a huge way.
One of the Emperor Augustus’ edicts imposes that Rome’s water must be public and all the private concessions were prohibited (we should say that this is an actual theme).

Romans distributed water thanks the so-called “castels”, cisterns positioned in the central squares from which departed tubes that everyone could use. It’s not a case that for historians the end of Rome was in 537 b.C., when Goths destroyed a huge number of aqueducts and left the Eternal City without water.

The following Popes from the XV century tried to bring back water in the city so they started the construction of many fountains, some of them monumental others of a lower quality, but with the purpose of giving water in each part of Rome.

The first mayor of Rome after the unification, Luigi Panciani, among the various problems chose to provide  the city of hundreds of fountains. So, in 1874, the “Nasoni” were created and, at the beginning, we could find them with three “mouths” and with decorations of dragon’s heads upon the spouts.

Now we have the simple model, that with only one spout, and all around the city there are 2500 specimens (in 2009 Acea developped a map for tourists that had a lot of success. You can find it by clicking here).
The water flows constantly so, in this way, it guarantees clearness and a constant temperature.
The water that we find in these famous fountains, spread in all the city, is the same that we drink at home.
The typical roman water, with low sodium and calcium and rich of beneficial virtues that coming from the 4 aqueducts that from the Province supply the Capital.

So, the hot weather is less scary in Rome than the other cities. A great little history that makes us proud and teaches us even more the relationship between Rome and its water (public water)…

Elio Tomassetti

(Trad. Giulia Peppoli)