This fountain was erected in the last year of the pontificate of Gregory XIII and the first year of the pontificate of Sixtus V, which would explain why its erection is attributed sometimes to the reign of one pope and sometimes to that of the other. It is difficult to understand how Sixtus V could have permitted the erection of any fountain so entirely devoid of scriptural suggestion, so purely pagan in its expression of joyous and irresponsible life, as is the Tartarughe. Possibly the play of the boys in the splashing water reminded the old man, who was in spite of his fierce enthusiasms so kindly and so human, of the far-off days of his childhood. As Cardinal Montalto he had done much for his native village, and many acts of his pontificate prove he had the poor always with him. He never forgot their sufferings or their simple pleasures, and in that old heart there lingered memories of his father’s fruit garden at Formi, of the pear-trees which he placed in his coat of arms, and of the great cistern in which he dabbled with such happy recklessness that one day he fell in and had to be fished out like any other urchin destined or not for the papal chair. Rome would, undoubtedly, be the richer for a fountain by Raphael, but it is probably fortunate for the Tartarughe that it was not of Raphael’s creation. It is not likely that this bit of fancy in bronze and rare marbles could have escaped destruction at the time of the sack of Rome in 1527, only six years after Raphael’s death. Perhaps, also, this last blossom from the golden Summer of Italian Art owes its perfect preservation to its position in an obscure corner close to what was once the Ghetto. But as a setting for this gem no situation could be more inadequate. A mean square of dingy, uniformly ugly houses surrounds it, and there is not one redeeming feature in all this dreariness except the patch of blue sky overhead. A fountain fit to be the crowning beauty of some prince’s garden or to be celebrated in a canto of “The Faerie Queene” plays on in this commonplace part of Rome unheeded, and seemingly uncared for. However, when in 1898, one of the tortoises was stolen the indignation felt at the theft was so wide-spread and so fierce that the thief was only too glad to abandon the precious tortoise in a place where it could be easily discovered. Trevi water supplies this fountain at present. Until quite recently it was the Acqua Paola, but its deposits had so discolored the bronze and marbles that the water in the shells was changed back to the Trevi, for which water it was originally constructed. However, the highest jet in the fountain was not changed, as Paola water can rise to a much higher level than Trevi. FONTANA DEL MOSÈ [Illustration] FONTANA DEL MOSÈ