Like the majority of the fountains of Messina, the Quattro Cavallucci fountain was commissioned  by the Senate in honor of the feast of the Madonna della Lettera, probably in 1742. It was built by Giovan Battista Marino and designed by Gaetano Ungaro.

The two oval basins made of white marble, placed now between Largo San Giacomo and via Cesare Battisti, and behind the Cathedral apses, were part of a bigger monument situated in the ancient Piazza di Santa Maria La Porta, the present Largo Seguenza. The four basins that formed the fountain were arranged symmetrically, one opposite the other, and called “I quattru cavadduzzi” (the four little horses) because putti were straddling seahorses. This is the image that the old printings show us.