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The Fountain of the Sea-Horses
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Their tails twine about its stem, and the basin is close above their heads, but it does not rest upon them; they are free. It is evident that in one more spring they will be out and away. Yet they do not take it, and they never will. For once Bernini's genius masters his fancy. His fountain is not a fanciful conceit but a rich and peaceful artistic creation. An enchanter's wand has checked the horses in mid-career, and here they remain, motionless, for all their movement, under the shadow of the leafy basin, part of a beautiful whole that must never be broken. This is one of those rare compositions in which the artist has most happily achieved the second essential in a fountain, that it should be a thing of beauty, a source of delight to the eye and ear. It is admirably suited to its surroundings, for rich carving and imaginative sculpture held in subservience to the natural charm of quiet water, conform exquisitely with a garden where stately formality enhances the loveliness of wild and simple beauty. The fountain is of travertine, the natural mellow tone of which has been rendered even more lovely by centuries of soft Italian weather. It does not stand out conspicuously in the vista; it detaches itself from the surrounding trees gently, as if it had grown there among them.
On either side of this fountain the ground falls away sharply into groves of ilex, traversed by natural footpaths. In the gloom of these wooded spaces there are
two other fountains. Great basins catching the water from tiers of smaller ones in the centre and each surrounded by a broken circle of curved stone benches. They are the work of Antonio Vansantio; and, according to drawings by Letarouilly, the back of each semicircular bench was originally decorated at regular intervals with statues. Behind these stood a formally clipped box hedge rising some three feet above the benches, while the larger trees growing behind the hedge made by their branches a green canopy to this truly charming bit of garden architecture. Vansantio's basins and benches are now in a half-ruined condition, but they are still extremely lovely and suggest pictures of eighteenth-century garden-parties, where groups of Watteau's figures idle away the hours. The fountains are hardly visible, even at close range. They betray themselves by the sound of their falling water, which gives to the scene, like the song of the hermit-thrush, a poignant sense of remoteness and solitude.
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