The idea for adding this spectacular fountain to the capitol campus was first conceived by Peter G. Schmidt during his visit to Copenhagen, Denmark in 1949. It was at that time that Schmidt, then-president of the Olympia-Tumwater Foundation (a privately-funded organization created for the advance of recreational, benevolent, and educational projects for the State of Washington) was especially taken with a large fountain he saw there. This fountain, it turned out, was a copy of one located in Tivoli, a town about 16 miles east of Rome that contains one of the finest surviving examples of a garden from the Renaissance period in Italy. http://www.des.wa.gov/services/facilities/CapitolCampus/MemorialsArt/Pages/Tivoli.aspx