I love it when architecture falls apart - here the facade of Palazzo Poli mutates into the baroque waterworks of the fountain formed in part with Travertine from quarries near Tivoli

…Fountain is what we attempted to see pre-tourist-mob this morning (first stop on today’s familial Roman highlights tour), at an early enough hour that we might have it to ourselves, which was almost the case by the time we finally made it there – and having just finished reading Grant Heiken, Renato Funiciello, and Donatella de Rita’s “The Seven Hills of Rome: A Geological Tour of the Eternal City” which begins with a fascinating account of the deep geological history that made this fountain possible (during the period of 1732-62 which now seems very recent), such as the sedimentary spring deposited Travertine from Tivoli, the metaphoric rock from Carrara, the pavers of lava stone from flows along the Appian Way, and the Vergine acqueduct delivered water from the Salone springs – this local tourist cliché seems all the more alive to me this morning.