La Fontana Fraterna è un’elegante fonte pubblica con sei getti d’acqua, dalle inusuali forme di un loggiato, realizzata con blocchi di pietra calcarea compatta.

DESCRIPTION
(Source: “La Fontana della Concezione” by Guido LICCIARDI in “Altri Itinerari” – Volturnia Editions)

The “Fontana Fraterna” is a refined public fountain with six water jets, with an unusual arcade-shape, made of blocks of calcareous, compact stone.
The fountain has articulated into three fillets laid one upon the other. From below, there is a series of smooth fillets (the one on the left is a Roman-epoch and fragmentary epigraph with the letters AE PONT, while in the centre there is a mat decorated with dolphins and a Roman-age flower, probably coming from a sepulchral building), then there is a median fillet with a series of six round arches supported, on the left side, by little circular columns and on the right side, by little octagonal columns.
Above these columns there are some capitals of re-employment. Two capitals have trapezoidal-plant abacus and perhaps adorned a window splay. The higher fillet presents a line of smooth ashlars on which twelve little hanging arches set, supported by little brackets adorned with zoomorphic, phitomorphic and geometric motives. On the bottom of the fountain, on a second level in respect to the arcade, you can distinguish two blocks of Roman age with some swags and a funerary epigraph dedicated to the god Mani. On its right side there is a third high-mediaeval epigraph, situated between two lion statues, referring to the building of a fountain. A deep study of the surfaces allows to verify that the blocks were worked on several occasions, with an extremely long interval, and that come from an undefined number of buildings of the town. Therefore the handiwork represents an interesting abacus of workings, decorative elements, an exemplar of material culture with centuries of town history written on.