September 1870 the Italian troops that were assembled in Umbria crossed the Pontifical State boundary and began the expedition, culminating after a few days with the seizure of Rome, bringing an end to the Popes’ temporal reign. Only a few hours before, Pio IX, Mastai Ferretti, had inaugurated the Najadi Fountain, built as a display of the Acqua Marcia being brought back into Rome where it had fed the Eternal City with the Aniene waters since year II a.c.
The show fountain was originally located nearly 80 metres away from its current position, in what was then called Piazza Termini, between the Via delle Terme di Diocleziano and Viale Luigi Einaudi.
In 1885, with the completion of Via Nazionale and the construction of two palaces by Gaetano Koch in the vicinity of the ancient esedra baths, the fountain, designed by Alessandro Guerrieri, was moved to its current location in the centre of what in the 1950’s was called Piazza della Repubblica even though many romans continue to call it Piazza Esedra.
The fountain’s structure was very simple: a series of four undecorated basins standing at different heights, so much so that during the state visit of Emperor William II in 1888 four chalk lions were temporarily added to enrich it.
In 1901 the Sicilian sculptor, Mario Rutelli, grandfather of Francesco Rutelli who was mayor of Rome during the Giubileo Year 2000, created four water nymphs that give it its name: the Najade of oceans, the Najade of rivers, the Najade of lakes and the Najade of underground waters.
The young Najadi, completely naked and wet from the water, were considered obscene for a long time and the people who were nostalgic of the Pontifical government criticized those who had replaced it as lacking in morality.
In 1912 the same Rutelli who in the eternal city created the monument to Anita Garibaldi on Gianicolo, one of the Victories of the Vittoriano and the monument to Nicola Spedalieri near the Chiesa Nuova, completed the fountain with a group of Glauco.
Certainly the mythological inspiration shows the need to break off from the past; not by chance was Ernesto Nathan made Councillor of Historic Monuments in Rome during the period spanning ‘800 and ‘900; nominated Great Maestro of the Masonic Great Orient Lodge of Italy, who in 1907 was to become Mayor of the city introducing its first regulated planning system.