Builders of the First Fountains
Builders of the First Fountains Water fountain designers were multi-talented people from the 16th to the later part of the 18th century, often serving as architects, sculptors, artists, engineers and cultivated scholars all in one.
Exemplifying the Renaissance artist as a innovative genius, Leonardo da Vinci worked as an inventor and scientific expert. The forces of nature led him to explore the qualities and motion of water, and due to his fascination, he methodically recorded his experiences in his now famed notebooks. Early Italian water feature engineers transformed private villa configurations into amazing water displays full of emblematic meaning and natural charm by combining imagination with hydraulic and gardening talent. Known for his incredible skill in archeology, design and garden design, Pirro Ligorio, the humanist, provided the vision behind the splendors in Tivoli. For the assorted lands close to Florence, other water fountain builders were well versed in humanist subjects and ancient technical texts, masterminding the excellent water marbles, water highlights and water antics.
Modern Garden Decoration: Outdoor Fountains and their Roots
Modern Garden Decoration: Outdoor Fountains and their Roots A fountain, an incredible piece of engineering, not only supplies drinking water as it pours into a basin, it can also launch water high into the air for a noteworthy effect.Originally, fountains only served a practical purpose. Cities, towns and villages made use of nearby aqueducts or springs to supply them with potable water as well as water where they could bathe or wash. Until the late nineteenth, century most water fountains operated using gravity to allow water to flow or jet into the air, therefore, they needed a supply of water such as a reservoir or aqueduct located higher than the fountain. Acting as an element of adornment and celebration, fountains also generated clean, fresh drinking water. The main materials used by the Romans to build their fountains were bronze or stone masks, mostly depicting animals or heroes. Muslims and Moorish landscaping designers of the Middle Ages included fountains to re-create smaller models of the gardens of paradise. King Louis XIV of France wanted to illustrate his dominion over nature by including fountains in the Gardens of Versailles. The Romans of the 17th and 18th centuries created baroque decorative fountains to exalt the Popes who commissioned them as well as to mark the spot where the restored Roman aqueducts entered the city.
Indoor plumbing became the key source of water by the end of the 19th century thereby limiting urban fountains to mere decorative elements. Impressive water effects and recycled water were made possible by switching the force of gravity with mechanical pumps.
Embellishing city parks, honoring people or events and entertaining, are some of the purposes of modern-day fountains.