Onofrio's Large Fountain

This guide to Onofrio's Large Fountain in Dubrovnik starts with a water racket: before the fountain existed, boats sailed barrels of fresh water into the harbor and sold it at whatever price thirst could bear, while the walled city survived bone-dry summers on rooftop cisterns alone. In 1436 the Republic's council hired the Neapolitan engineer Onofrio della Cava to end the monopoly for good, tapping a spring twelve kilometers away at the Rijeka Dubrovačka. Look closely at the sixteen carved masks around the rim, plainer now than the ones della Cava's masons first cut, after the earthquake of 1667 cracked the dome.