Bernini: The Genius Behind Italy's Most Impressive Water Fountains

Bernini: Genius Behind Italy's Impressive Water Fountains 245093707.jpg

Bernini: The Genius Behind Italy's Most Impressive Water Fountains The Barcaccia, a stunning fountain built at the base of the Trinita dei Monti in Piaza di Spagna, was Bernini's earliest water fountain. This area is still filled with Roman locals and visitors who like to exchanging gossip or going over the day's news. Today, the city streets around Bernini's water fountain are a trendy place where people go to meet, something which the artist would have been pleased to learn. In around 1630, Pope Urbano VIII helped Bernini start off his professional life with the construction of his first water fountain. An enormous vessel slowly sinking into the Mediterranean is the fountain's central theme. Period reports dating back to the 16th century show that the fountain was built as a monument to those who lost their lives in the great flooding of the Tevere. In 1665, France was graced by Bernini's one-and-only prolonged journey outside of Italy.

The Genesis Of Garden Fountains

The Genesis Of Garden Fountains The incredible architecture of a fountain allows it to provide clean water or shoot water high into air for dramatic effect and it can also serve as an excellent design feature to enhance your home.

The primary purpose of a fountain was originally strictly functional. Water fountains were connected to a spring or aqueduct to provide potable water as well as bathing water for cities, townships and villages. Up to the late 19th century, water fountains had to be near an aqueduct or reservoir and higher than the fountain so that gravity could make the water move down or jet high into the air. Fountains were an optimal source of water, and also served to adorn living areas and celebrate the artist. Animals or heroes made of bronze or stone masks were often used by Romans to beautify their fountains. 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 demonstrate his dominion over nature by including fountains in the Gardens of Versailles. Genesis Garden Fountains 514548640.jpg To mark the entryway of the restored Roman aqueducts, the Popes of the 17th and 18th centuries commissioned the building of baroque style fountains in the spot where the aqueducts arrived in the city of Rome

Indoor plumbing became the key source of water by the end of the 19th century thereby restricting urban fountains to mere decorative elements. The creation of unique water effects and the recycling of water were 2 things made possible by swapping gravity with mechanical pumps.

Decorating city parks, honoring people or events and entertaining, are some of the functions of modern-day fountains.

Inventors of the First Water Features

Inventors of the First Water Features Commonly serving as architects, sculptors, artists, engineers and discerning scholars, all in one, fountain designers were multi-talented individuals from the 16th to the later part of the 18th century. Leonardo da Vinci, a Renaissance artist, was celebrated as a inventive genius, inventor and scientific master. The forces of nature inspired him to investigate the properties and motion of water, and due to his fascination, he methodically documented his experiences in his now famed notebooks. Early Italian water fountain designers altered private villa settings into inspiring water showcases full of emblematic meaning and natural beauty by combining imagination with hydraulic and gardening expertise. The splendors in Tivoli were created by the humanist Pirro Ligorio, who was widely known for his capabilities in archeology, architecture and garden design. Other water feature engineers, masterminding the fantastic water marbles, water features and water antics for the countless domains in the vicinity of Florence, were tried and tested in humanistic topics and traditional scientific texts.