THE MELTED FOUNTAIN
(Source: Altri Itinerari – Document kept in the Municipal Historical Archives of Isernia)

In the survey of 1935 there are many evidences about the union operation of the two fountains existing before the present Fountain of the Conception. Felice Caruso reports in detail some dimensional elements of the fountain  that he arranged to take to pieces.
At the first point of the survey he affirms that the inner façade of the pre-existing three-jets fountain was 9 Neapolitan spans long (1 span=0,26455 metres, so 2,38 metres) and 7 span high (1.85 metres).
The new fountain should have had the inner façade 23 spans long (6.08 metres) and 8 spans high (2.01 metres). Comparing with the data of the present fountain, it is 5.95 metres long and 2.01 high. In the survey about the new blocks he prescribes to use “burr prop-travertine stone”, actually it is compact, not travertinoid limestone: it is surely a different denomination of the stone, as the so called travertine wasn’t removed in the area. The burr prop working leaves some little holes on the stone surface and is carried out through a little one-point chisel bitten by a little dimension hammer and repeatedly moved along the surface.
At the second point of the survey Caruso affirms that a strip has to be created “in front of the arcade covering”, that is situated on the external façade, at the height of the covering. According to the survey, the strip had to be 1 ¾ spans high (0.46 metres), while actually it is 0.39 metres high.
At the third point he describes the covering: it had to be 25 spans long (6.61 metres), while in the real fountain it is 6.39 metres.
At the fourth point Caruso talks about two arches to be added to the existing six ones: each element should have been 4 spans long (1.06 metres), actually the elements of the handiwork have variable measures between 0.90 and 1.02 metres, while they should have been 2 ½ spans high (0.66 m), actually the measure is 0.62 metres.
At the fifth point two little hanging arches are mentioned, “little alcoves” to be added to the ten ones coming from the previous fountains: they had to be “their foundations”: that is each block had to include either the little arch and the inner lunette.
At the eighth point Caruso declares to carry out the complex basement pillar capital, leaning to a circular base semi-column and an octagonal base one, placed at the centre of the fountain. He specifies that either the pillar and the capital come from the working of elements already existing.
At the tenth point he describes the reassembling operation of the “parapet” of the low strip of the fountain. The slabs had to come from a pre-existing handiwork, as Caruso uses the “compositure” word, not the execution one.
At last, at the eleventh and thirteenth point there are interesting notes about the structural technique to be adopted: the lapidary blocks should have been linked with “ciappe”, that is C-clamps, fixed at the stone with melted plumb.