The Piazza Montanara, destroyed during the period of Fascist construction during the 1930's, was one of the busiest in Rome during the life of St. Gaspar. Located near at the foot of the Capitoline Hill to the southwest, this was the heart of our Founder's ministry in Rome. The Piazza Montanara was named for the montanari or "mountain people" who came to Rome to sell their products or their labor. The piazza was filled with workshops that made agricultural tools making it important. And also because it acted as a kind of open-air Labor Exchange. Laborers came from the fields and vineyards to procure the rural implements sold there, and other things necessary for living. These rustic workers found jobs there working in other people's fields and were taken on and articled by Farm Managers, Foremen or Vineyard Owners who bargain with them according to the days of the season, which makes for longer or shorter working hours. This was a place of great poverty and human suffering.

In the midst of all this, a strange yet simple little fountain used to stand there. This Roman fountain which has been referred to as extremely strange by some writings consists of linear simplicity with an upper cup and a lower basin that struggles in vain to appear nobler by sporting a few copies of the civic crest. In the center, a tall baluster is adorned by four large masks spouting water. On top there is a tremendously rough and heavy bowl. At present, the fountain is protected by a circle of stumpy posts and an iron railing.