Gian Lorenzo Bernini's Outdoor Fountains

Gian Lorenzo Bernini's Outdoor Fountains Gian Lorenzo Bernini's Outdoor Fountains 6928505392.jpg

There are many celebrated fountains in the city center of Rome. Gian Lorenzo Bernini, one of the most brilliant sculptors and artists of the 17th century planned, conceptualized and built almost all of them. Traces of his life's efforts are evident all through the roads of Rome simply because, in addition to his skills as a water feature builder, he was also a city builder. A famous Florentine sculptor, Bernini's father guided his young son, and they eventually went to Rome to fully showcase their artwork, primarily in the form of public water features and water fountains. The juvenile Bernini was an great worker and received encouragement and patronage of significant painters as well as popes. His sculpture was originally his claim to popularity. Most notably in the Vatican, he utilized a base of expertise in ancient Greek architecture and melded it flawlessly with Roman marble. Although many artists impacted his artistic endeavors, Michelangelo inspired him the most.

The Water Features

The Water Features As initially developed, fountains were designed to be functional, guiding water from creeks or aqueducts to the residents of cities and villages, where the water could be used for cooking food, cleaning, and drinking. A supply of water higher in elevation than the fountain was needed to pressurize the movement and send water spraying from the fountain's nozzle, a system without equal until the late nineteenth century. Water Features 63351147085786321568.jpg

Frequently used as monuments and commemorative structures, water fountains have inspired men and women from all over the planet all through the centuries. When you see a fountain today, that is definitely not what the very first water fountains looked like. A natural stone basin, crafted from rock, was the 1st fountain, utilized for containing water for drinking and ceremonial purposes. 2,000 BC is when the oldest known stone fountain basins were originally used. The force of gravity was the energy source that controlled the earliest water fountains. The placement of the fountains was determined by the water source, which is why you’ll usually find them along aqueducts, canals, or streams. Fountains with elaborate decoration began to show up in Rome in approximately 6 B.C., commonly gods and creatures, made with natural stone or copper-base alloy. The Romans had an elaborate system of aqueducts that provided the water for the numerous fountains that were located throughout the urban center.

A Chronicle of Garden Water Fountains

A Chronicle of Garden Water Fountains The translation of hundreds of classical Greek documents into Latin was commissioned by the learned Pope Nicholas V who ruled the Church in Rome from 1397 until 1455. Embellishing Rome and making it the worthy capital of the Christian world was at the heart of his ambitions. In 1453 the Pope commissioned the repairing of the Aqua Vergine, an ancient Roman aqueduct which had carried clean drinking water into the city from eight miles away. A mostra, a monumental celebratory fountain constructed by ancient Romans to mark the point of entry of an aqueduct, was a tradition which was restored by Nicholas V. Chronicle Garden Water Fountains 42082831912712429002.jpg

Chronicle Garden Water Fountains 42082831912712429002.jpg

The architect Leon Battista Alberti was commissioned by the Pope to put up a wall fountain where we now find the Trevi Fountain. The Trevi Fountain as well as the renowned baroque fountains located in the Piazza del Popolo and the Piazza Navona were eventually supplied with water from the altered aqueduct he had reconstructed.

Early Water Supply Techniques in The City Of Rome

Early Water Supply Techniques City Rome 91832282533950564.jpg

Prior to 273, when the 1st elevated aqueduct, Aqua Anio Vetus, was built in Rome, inhabitants who lived on hills had to travel even further down to collect their water from natural sources. If inhabitants residing at higher elevations did not have accessibility to springs or the aqueduct, they’d have to depend on the remaining existing technologies of the day, cisterns that compiled rainwater from the sky and subterranean wells that drew the water from below ground. Starting in the sixteenth century, a new method was introduced, using Acqua Vergine’s subterranean sectors to deliver water to Pincian Hill. As originally constructed, the aqueduct was provided along the length of its channel with pozzi (manholes) constructed at regular intervals. During the roughly 9 years he possessed the residential property, from 1543 to 1552, Cardinal Marcello Crescenzi used these manholes to take water from the network in buckets, though they were actually built for the objective of cleaning and maintaining the aqueduct. Reportedly, the rainwater cistern on his property wasn’t sufficient to satisfy his needs. To provide himself with a much more practical means to gather water, he had one of the manholes opened, providing him access to the aqueduct below his residence.