The Babuino fountain

Via del Babuino runs from the Spanish Steps to Piazza del Popolo. Halfway along, a weathered stone figure reclines above a granite basin: the Babuino.

Who is he?

The statue is an ancient Roman figure of Silenus, the drunken, half-goat companion of Bacchus, god of wine. It had been so badly worn by time that when it was set up here Romans thought it looked like a monkey and called it er babbuino, "the baboon". The name stuck so well that the street, originally Via Paolina, was renamed after it.

A fountain paid for by a merchant

In the 1570s a wealthy merchant, Alessandro Grandi, built a public fountain here with the statue and an ancient basin. Under an arrangement promoted by the popes of the time, he received water for his own house and gardens in return for giving a fountain to the city. Private-public fountains like this were a common way of bringing water to Rome's streets.

The fountain was moved in the 19th century when the street was rebuilt, and returned close to its original position in the 1950s.

One of Rome's talking statues

From the 16th century onwards, Romans hung anonymous verses called pasquinate on a handful of ancient statues, mocking the popes, cardinals and the powerful. There are six "talking statues": Pasquino (the most famous, near Piazza Navona), Marforio, Madama Lucrezia, Abate Luigi, il Facchino and the Babuino. The statues sometimes "answered" each other across the city. The wall behind the Babuino was so covered in graffiti that it has had to be cleaned many times, and people still leave notes today.

While you're here

• Walk one street over to Via Margutta and the Fountain of the Arts.
• Stroll on to Piazza del Popolo and climb to the Pincio terrace.
• Next door, the Greek Catholic church of Sant'Atanasio dei Greci has twin bell towers and a Byzantine-rite liturgy.