Fontana di Pio IX a Via Annia

This fountain was originally placed in a wash-house facing the basilica di San Clemente. It was designed in 1864 by Virgilio Vespignani under pope Pious the Ninth Mastai Ferretti (1846-1878). Around 1927 the Municipality decided to move it to its current location, near the boundary wall of the Military Hospital on the Caelius. A marble sarcophagus of the first century BC receives water from two lion heads above, enclosed within volutes that flank the coat of arms of Pious the Ninth, within a brick niche surmounted by the coat of arms of the Municipality. Above all a small square made of black marble supports a small basin that pours water. The construction of the fountain is commemorated in an epigraph on the pond-sarcophagus.