Piazza Navona

The square keeps the shape of the Stadium of Domitian (1st century AD), whose seating lies beneath the surrounding houses. At its centre, Gian Lorenzo Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers (1651) depicts the Nile, Ganges, Danube and Río de la Plata; opposite stands Sant'Agnese in Agone, with a façade by Francesco Borromini.

Did you know: The Nile's head is veiled because its source was unknown at the time. The story of the statues snubbing Borromini's church is only a legend: the façade was built after the fountain.

✦ The legend: The story goes that in the Fountain of the Four Rivers the Río de la Plata raises his arm to shield himself from the façade of Sant'Agnese, fearing it will collapse on him, while the Nile covers his face so as not to look at it: Bernini's revenge on his rival Borromini. It is a wonderful story and quite untrue — the fountain was finished before the façade existed — but Romans have been telling it for four centuries.