Fontana della Barcaccia: View looking towards the front of the boat

Has been attributed to Pietro Bernini. 'The fountain was constructed in 1627-1629 as part of Urban VIII's plan to bring some of the water of the Acqua Vergine to the area between the Piazza di Spagna and the Porta del Popolo...the fountain had to be designed to be low because the pressure of the water was slight...both the authorship and iconography of the fountain have given rise to much discussion...most modern authorities are agreed that the invention...is due to the young Gianlorenzo Bernini and not his father...the boat is partly an allusion to the ship of the Church...and partly an allusion to symbols used by Urban VIII himself in one of his poems, in which the guns of the Barberini ship fire not cannon balls but water to calm the troubles of the world....'p. 233