Welcome to the site Napoliforme

In early 1600, architect Domenico Fontana was in Naples to build the city's new Royal Palace. To close the perspective of the corner towards the sea of the large space in front of the façade the largo di Palazzo, now Piazza del Plebiscito - the architect created a scenographic backdrop, with a monumental fountain with three arches (by Pietro Bernini and Michelangelo Naccherino), next to the colossal statue incorporating the ancient bust of Jupiter found in Cumae (in 1807 freed from the artificial body and now in the National Archaeological Museum). The statue, confidentially called the 'Giant of the Palace', by assimilation gave its name to both the fountain and the road, the descent that begins immediately afterwards towards Santa Lucia (the 'Giant's descent'). But in 1815 the street was modified and the fountain was moved to the pier along Via Marina, in front of the 18th-century seat of the Public Health Court (by Domenico Antonio Vaccaro), known as the Immacolatella because of the statue of the Virgin that crowns its façade, and from that moment on the fountain of the Giant 'became' the fountain of the Immacolatella. In 1869 the Villa del Popolo garden was inaugurated at Carmine and the fountain was moved to the park until 1903, when it was dismantled and reassembled in the small gardens in Via San Pasquale a Chiaia. Finally, in 1906, it was reassembled in Santa Lucia, during the urban development of the new district on the seafront, on the widening in front of the Hotel Excelsior, its final scenic location. The marble fountain consists of three arches: in the larger central one is the basin of water, supported by dolphins; in the smaller arches are two tritons, each with a sea monster from whose mouth water comes out, while at the sides two caryatids hold cornucopias, the symbol of wealth and prosperity, and on the arches three coats of arms: of King Philip III of Spain, in the centre, of the city and of the viceroy.