Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi (Four Rivers Fountain)

Bernini's 1651 Baroque masterpiece at the heart of Piazza Navona, commissioned by Pope Innocent X to glorify the Pamphilj family. Four colossal river gods represent the four known continents — the Danube (Europe), Ganges (Asia), Nile (Africa, depicted with a veiled head because the river's source was unknown), and Río de la Plata (the Americas) — sprawled around an Egyptian obelisk that seems to float on pierced travertine. A long-running joke says one figure shields his eyes from the ugliness of Borromini's church facing the fountain — Bernini's bitter rival — but the chronology proves it apocryphal.