Wellspring of wishes

Up to four workers collect the coins twice a week, regional utility Acea manager Francesco Prisco said. The fountain is drained for cleaning twice a month. Extracting the coins is a spectacle and involves utility workers balancing on the edge of the vast Baroque fountain, using long brooms and suction hoses.

The coins are then given to Caritas, where they are dried with hair-dryers and cutlery dryers and sorted and counted.