The Aeolus Fountain, with its numerous sculptural groups, is the most spectacular and monumental of all the Palace's fountains. It gets its name from the theme it depicts: the mythological episode from Virgil's Aeneid, in which Aelous, god of the winds, spurred on by Hera, unleashes the fury of the winds against Aeneas and the Trojans, driving them out to sea away from the Italian coast.
The series of arches forming a semi-circle, symbolize grottoes with caves and rocks, from which rise the winds and zephyrs, portrayed as winged statues spurting water from their mouths. The bas-reliefs that can be seen high up between the arches recount other mythological episodes: the Marriage of Thetys and Peleus, the Judgment of Paris, Zeus and the three Goddesses and the Marriage of Paris. The sculptures and bas-reliefs are the work of Angelo Brunelli, Gaetano Salomone, Andrea Violani, Paolo Persico and Tommaso Solari. On the marble balustrade that surmounts the fountains stand "the slaves", thought to represent those who provided the manual labour for the construction of the Palace. The most important sculptural group, Hera on a chariot surrounded by a throg of nymphs, taht was to have been placed in the centre of the vast expanse of water, was never added and this is the only fountain that was never completed. The only remaining statues of this group are Hera and two peacocks that today can be seen on the ground floor of the Palace in the rooms that house the offices of the A.P.P.S.A.E. (Landscape, Monuments, Fine Arts and Historical, Artistic and Ethno-anthropological Heritage) of Caserta.
The fountain is fed from a basin divided into six sections on different levels so, as it falls from one level to the next the water creates extraordinary effects of reflected light.