Fendi for foun­tains? Yep, you heard right. It’s the catch­phrase for a noble ges­ture announced a cou­ple of weeks ago by the leg­endary lux­ury goods brand.

Chair­man and CEO Pietro Bec­cari, backed up by Sil­via Ven­turini Fendi and Karl Lager­feld, has pledged some­thing like €2.5m to fund an urgent restora­tion of Rome’s mon­u­men­tal Fontana di Trevi and the nearby late-Renaissance Quat­tro Fontane com­plex. The donation, said he, under­scores the company’s ded­i­ca­tion to art, beauty and crafts­man­ship as well as its Roman con­nec­tion. The Fendi empire in fact started out in 1925 as an unas­sum­ing trader of furs and leather goods in Via del Plebisc­ito.

In return for such largesse, the double-F logo will be dis­played around the sites while work is in progress, and due grat­i­tude is to be inscribed near the foun­tains when they reap­pear in all their orig­i­nal glory.

But that’s noth­ing com­pared to what Tod’s and even Diesel are shelling out for Italy’s cul­tural heritage!

The Fendi bounty fits neatly into a trend in which the appointed author­i­ties are obliged to seek spon­sors to main­tain their trea­sures, and heavy­weight fash­ion houses oblig­ingly invest. Tod’s is to dis­burse no less than €25m for a restyling of the Colos­seum, while Diesel has promised €5m for a ren­o­va­tion of Venice’s Rialto Bridge.

Other mega-brands, please form an orderly queue…