In Via Bagni di Mario, one can visit the octagonal cistern designed by Tommaso Laureti in 1563, commissioned by the papal legate Pier Donato Cesi.
The Palermo-born Laureti was a typical Renaissance artist of genius: a painter, architect, master of art and engineering. He was commissioned to design a fountain for the Piazza Maggiore in Bologna, and called Jean de Boulogne – Giambologna – to design what later became the famous Fountain of Neptune.
Laureti took care of and conceived the mythological iconographic part of the subject and, while Giambologna worked on the Neptune statue and decorations, he designed the overall waterway needed to bring water to the fountain.
The cistern of the Baths of Marius, so called because of its proximity to the ancient Roman aqueduct, was the cure from which the water spurted from the fountain at the foot of Neptune.
