About the Work
With this depiction of the Piazza Navona, the native Frankfurter Johannes Lingelbach staged the bustling Rome of the simple folk. The monuments of the papal metropolis served him as a backdrop. He assembled the latter with the aid of drawings and prints, attaching little importance to topographical accuracy in the process. In fact, Lingelbach was no longer even in Rome when Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s famous ‘Fountain of the Four Rivers’ reached completion. He had presumably already returned to Amsterdam in 1650, a year before the fountain’s dedication.