Bernini's First Showpieces
Bernini's First Showpieces The Barcaccia, a beautiful water fountain built at the base of the Trinita dei Monti in Piaza di Spagna, was Bernini's earliest fountain. To this day, you will find Roman locals and vacation goers occupying this spot to revel in chit chatter and being among other people. The streets neighboring his fountain have come to be one of the city’s most fashionable meeting places, something which would certainly have pleased Bernini himself. In around 1630, Pope Urbano VIII helped Bernini start off his career with the construction of his very first fountain. People can now see the fountain as an illustration of a commanding ship slowly sinking into the Mediterranean.
Period reports dating back to the 16th century indicate that the fountain was constructed as a memorial to those who lost their lives in the great flooding of the Tevere. In what became his only prolonged absence from Italy, Bernini {journeyed | traveled] to France in 1665.
Rome’s Ingenious Water Delivery Systems
Rome’s Ingenious Water Delivery Systems
Rome’s very first elevated aqueduct, Aqua Anio Vetus, was built in 273 BC; before that, residents living at higher elevations had to rely on local creeks for their water. Outside of these aqueducts and springs, wells and rainwater-collecting cisterns were the lone techniques readily available at the time to supply water to locations of high elevation. To deliver water to Pincian Hill in the early 16th century, they employed the new method of redirecting the motion from the Acqua Vergine aqueduct’s underground network. Throughout the time of its original construction, pozzi (or manholes) were added at set intervals alongside the aqueduct’s channel. The manholes made it less demanding to thoroughly clean the channel, but it was also achievable to use buckets to pull water from the aqueduct, as we saw with Cardinal Marcello Crescenzi when he operated the property from 1543 to 1552, the year he died. Reportedly, the rainwater cistern on his property wasn’t good enough to meet his needs. Fortunately, the aqueduct sat below his property, and he had a shaft opened to give him accessibility.