Where did Large Garden Fountains Originate from?
Where did Large Garden Fountains Originate from? 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 main 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 until the 19th century, fountains had to be more elevated and closer to a water source, such as aqueducts and reservoirs, in order to take advantage of gravity which fed the fountains. Fountains were an excellent source of water, and also served to decorate living areas and celebrate the artist. Bronze or stone masks of wildlife and heroes were commonly seen on Roman fountains. To illustrate the gardens of paradise, Muslim and Moorish garden planners of the Middle Ages added fountains to their designs. Fountains enjoyed a significant role in the Gardens of Versailles, all part of French King Louis XIV’s desire to exert his power over nature. 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 location where the restored Roman aqueducts entered the city.
Indoor plumbing became the main source of water by the end of the 19th century thereby limiting urban fountains to mere decorative elements. The creation of special water effects and the recycling of water were two things made possible by swapping gravity with mechanical pumps.
Decorating city parks, honoring people or events and entertaining, are some of the purposes of modern-day fountains.
Back Story of Outdoor Fountains
Back Story of Outdoor Fountains Himself a highly educated man, Pope Nicholas V headed the Roman Catholic Church from 1397 till 1455 and was responsible for the translation of scores of age-old documents from their original Greek into Latin. Beautifying Rome and making it the worthy capital of the Christian world was at the center of his objectives. Beginning in 1453, the ruined ancient Roman aqueduct known as the Aqua Vergine which had brought fresh drinking water into the city from eight miles away, underwent restoration at the behest of the Pope.
The ancient Roman tradition of building an imposing commemorative fountain at the location where an aqueduct arrived, also known as a mostra, was revived by Nicholas V. The architect Leon Battista Alberti was directed by the Pope to put up a wall fountain where we now find the Trevi Fountain. The aqueduct he had refurbished included modifications and extensions which eventually enabled it to supply water to the Trevi Fountain as well as the famed baroque fountains in the Piazza del Popolo and the Piazza Navona.