Fountain Builders Through History
Fountain Builders Through History Often working as architects, sculptors, artists, engineers and cultivated scholars all in one, from the 16th to the late 18th century, fountain designers were multi-faceted individuals, Leonardo da Vinci, a Renaissance artist, was notable as an creative master, inventor and scientific virtuoso. The forces of nature guided him to research the properties and movement of water, and due to his curiosity, he carefully captured his ideas in his now famed notebooks. Combining imagination with hydraulic and gardening talent, early Italian water feature developers transformed private villa settings into innovative water displays full with symbolic implications and natural elegance. The humanist Pirro Ligorio, renowned for his virtuosity in archeology, architecture and garden design, provided the vision behind the splendors in Tivoli. Well versed in humanist themes and ancient scientific texts, some other water fountain creators were masterminding the extraordinary water marbles, water properties and water jokes for the various properties around Florence.Anglo Saxon Grounds During the Norman Conquest
Anglo Saxon Grounds During the Norman Conquest
Modern Garden Decoration: Fountains and their Roots

Originally, fountains only served a functional purpose. Residents of cities, townships and small towns utilized them as a source of drinking water and a place to wash up, which meant that fountains had to be linked to nearby aqueduct or spring. Up until the nineteenth, fountains had to be higher and closer to a water supply, such as aqueducts and reservoirs, in order to take advantage of gravity which fed the fountains. Fountains were not only utilized as a water source for drinking water, but also to adorn homes and celebrate the designer who created it. Animals or heroes made of bronze or stone masks were often times used by Romans to beautify their fountains. To replicate the gardens of paradise, Muslim and Moorish garden planners of the Middle Ages added fountains to their designs. To demonstrate his prominence over nature, French King Louis XIV included fountains in the Garden of Versailles. The Romans of the 17th and 18th centuries created baroque decorative fountains to glorify the Popes who commissioned them as well as to mark the spot where the restored Roman aqueducts entered the city.
Since indoor plumbing became the norm of the day for clean, drinking water, by the end of the 19th century urban fountains were no longer needed for this purpose and they became purely decorative. The creation of special water effects and the recycling of water were two things made possible by swapping gravity with mechanical pumps.
Beautifying city parks, honoring people or events and entertaining, are some of the functions of modern-day fountains.