Memory and the Trevi Fountain: Flows of Political Power in Media Performance

Why do you throw a coin into the Trevi Fountain and make a wish?

This book links cultural memory with the materiality of the Trevi Fountain as historical monument and uses this perspective to examine its imagery in art, literature, film and music, concluding with the e-Trevi on the internet. How memory takes different pathways is of current interest in memory studies and the cross-disciplinary approach taken here considers how memory travels between media as well as exploring related issues such as forgetting and media convergence.

Yet there is a dark side to the Trevi, previously unexplored, of memory linked to water, which runs counter to its usual blue sky image, and this ambiguity is unravelled. The book also conveys the international, national and localized meanings of the Fountain and describes the changing ideologies that are hidden in the many performances the monument is made to give. The Trevi is symbolic of both commodification and misogyny, symbols that flow with changing and contemporary meanings. Throw your coin with care!