This is part of an aricle on the "Fountains of the Four Rivers" by Gianlorenzo Bernini:
Earlier Bernini fountains had been the Fountain of the Triton in Piazza Barberini, the fountain of the Moor in the southern end of Piazza Navona erected during the Barberini papacy, and the Neptune and Triton for Villa Montalto, whose statuary now resides at Victoria and Albert Museum in London. This fountain means to depict allegories for the four great rivers in the four continents recognized by the Renaissance geographers: the Nile in Africa, Ganges in Asia, Danube in Europe, and RÃÂo de la Plata in America. Each has animals and plants that further carry forth the identification. Each has a river god, semi-prostrate, in awe of the central tower, epitomized by the slender Egyptian obelisk (built for the Roman Serapeum in AD 81), symbolizing by Papal power surmounted by the Pamphilij symbol (dove). In addition, the fountain is a theater in the round, a spectacle of action, that can be strolled around.
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