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The fountain is placed at the foot of a colossal fluted column with a Corinthian capital, coming from the Basilica of Maxentius. It was built in 1614 by Carlo Maderno in front of the Basilica Liberiana (Saint Mary Major) to support the sculpture of the Virgin by Berthélot. The following year Maderno himself built the fountain, consisting of an oblong pond with a circular basin rising from its centre on a baluster. The eagles decorating the pond are the heraldic coat of arms of Paolo the Fifth Borghese, who commissioned the work, while the dragons that once decorated the long sides of the pond, another coat of arms of the Borghese family, have gone lost.