The present “Fontana Fraterna” raised in the Conception Square in 1835, with the pieces of two different fountains, one with five “jets” next to the Cathedral atrium and the other one (ruined by the earthquake in 1805) with three “jets”, already existing in the Conception Square. We ignore the fountain where the renowned but obscure inscription of Rampiniani’s comes from (in fact, upon the right side, a worked stone containing an epigraph and an escutcheon is set. The epigraph recites: FONS ISTE/CUIUS POSIT/RAMPINIANI/ME PARABIS; the escutcheon is formed by a relief shield with an hooked cross and people think it belonged to the Rampino’s).

While, we know the origin of the other two Roman inscriptions on the “Fontana Fraterna”; as the canonical Vincenzo Piccoli asserts on a manuscript of 1824 kept in the Record Office of Naples, you can see the lapidary inscription AE PONT in the “market fountain”, while the other epigraph, D.M.S. FUNDANIAE SECURAE PESCENNIUS SECURUS NEC IMMERITO exists in the “fountain of the Conception”.
Mommsen, who was in Isernia in 1844, observed the epigraph AE PONT in the “fountain of the Conception”, but with his extraordinary precision, noticed that it came from the market fountain. At this point we have to update our knowledge about the Fontana Fraterna; in fact, it had a difficult life. It was certainly built with materials coming from Roman monuments, but also with stony pieces of following epochs.
In 1835 the Fontana Fraterna was rebuilt in “the Conception Square”, also using stones of an “other ancient fountain” situated on the Cathedral wall on the Northern side just after the San Pietro Arch; in that occasion was “raised the inner façade as far as eight spans” (before, it was seven spans high) and lengthened from nine to ten spans.
In the same file of the Municipal Historical Archives there is also all the documentation about other works on the renowned fountain: in 1889 (with Enrico Cimorelli as mayor) the fountain was moved from the square in front of the Church of the Conception and collocated a little farer, on Marcelli road, “close to Leone’s house”. It was here, on the 10th of September 1943, when the air raid by the Allies broken it up completely; during the immediate Postwar it was rebuilt using its same pieces, in an environment completely shocked by the bombs fury. We have to do the last observation about this distinguished monument, symbol of the town of Isernia: in every document of the Municipal Historical Archives, the fountain always and everywhere is called “Fountain of the Conception”, while in some nineteenth-century documents is denominated “Fraterna”, as old people call it nowadays, because of the ancient square name; the expression “Fontana Fraterna” appeared just in the 20th century.
So the history of this monumental fountain, also present in the “Enciclopedia Treccani” among the most beautiful ones, has to be rewritten in the whole, with its historical, architectural and symbolic relevance.