Anglo Saxon Landscapes During the Norman Conquest
Anglo Saxon Landscapes During the Norman Conquest Anglo-Saxons experienced incredible adjustments to their daily lives in the latter half of the eleventh century due to the accession of the Normans. At the time of the conquest, the Normans surpassed the Anglo-Saxons in building design and cultivation. But there was no time for home life, domesticated design, and decoration until the Normans had conquered the whole region. Most often constructed upon windy peaks, castles were fundamental constructs that permitted their inhabitants to spend time and space to offensive and defensive strategies, while monasteries were rambling stone buildings commonly placed in only the most fecund, extensive valleys. Gardening, a quiet occupation, was unfeasible in these unproductive fortifications. Berkeley Castle, potentially the most unspoiled model of the early Anglo-Norman style of architecture, still exists in the present day.
The keep is said to date from William the Conqueror's time. A spacious terrace intended for exercising and as a means to stop attackers from mining under the walls runs about the building. One of these terraces, a charming bowling green, is covered grass and flanked by an aged yew hedge cut into the figure of crude battlements.
Where did Fountains Originate from?
Where did Fountains Originate from? A fountain, an amazing piece of engineering, not only supplies drinking water as it pours into a basin, it can also launch water high into the air for an extraordinary effect. The main purpose of a fountain was originally strictly functional. Water fountains were connected to a spring or aqueduct to supply potable water as well as bathing water for cities, townships and villages. Up until the nineteenth, fountains had to be higher and closer to a water supply, including aqueducts and reservoirs, in order to benefit from gravity which fed the fountains. Acting as an element of decoration and celebration, fountains also supplied clean, fresh drinking water. Animals or heroes made of bronze or stone masks were often times used by Romans to beautify their fountains. To replicate the gardens of paradise, Muslim and Moorish garden planners of the Middle Ages added fountains to their designs. King Louis XIV of France wanted to demonstrate his dominion over nature by including fountains in the Gardens of Versailles. The Romans of the 17th and 18th centuries manufactured baroque decorative fountains to exalt the Popes who commissioned them as well as to mark the location where the restored Roman aqueducts entered the city.
The end of the 19th century saw the increase in usage of indoor plumbing to provide drinking water, so urban fountains were relegated to purely decorative elements. Gravity was substituted by mechanical pumps in order to permit fountains to bring in clean water and allow for beautiful water displays.
Decorating city parks, honoring people or events and entertaining, are some of the functions of modern-day fountains.
The Godfather Of Rome's Water Fountains
The Godfather Of Rome's Water Fountains There are countless celebrated Roman water fountains in its city center.
Gian Lorenzo Bernini, one of the most brilliant sculptors and artists of the 17th century developed, created and produced nearly all of them. He was additionally a urban designer, in addition to his skills as a water feature designer, and records of his life's work are noticeable throughout the avenues of Rome. Bernini's father, a recognized Florentine sculptor, guided his young son, and they finally relocated in Rome, to thoroughly express their artwork in the form of community water features and water fountains. The young Bernini earned encouragement from Popes and relevant artists alike, and was an excellent worker. At the beginning he was renowned for his sculptural expertise. Most famously in the Vatican, he made use of a base of knowledge in historical Greek architecture and melded it flawlessly with Roman marble. Though many artists had an impact on his work, Michelangelo had the most profound effect.
The Source of Modern Day Outdoor Water Fountains
The Source of Modern Day Outdoor Water Fountains
The translation of hundreds of classic Greek documents into Latin was commissioned by the scholarly Pope Nicholas V who led the Church in Rome from 1397 till 1455. It was imperative for him to beautify the city of Rome to make it worthy of being called the capital of the Christian world. Reconstruction of the Acqua Vergine, a ruined Roman aqueduct which had transported clean drinking water into the city from eight miles away, began in 1453 at the bidding of the Pope. A mostra, a monumental dedicatory fountain constructed by ancient Romans to mark the point of arrival of an aqueduct, was a tradition which was restored by Nicholas V. At the behest of the Pope, architect Leon Battista Alberti undertook the construction of a wall fountain in the spot 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 renowned baroque fountains in the Piazza del Popolo and the Piazza Navona.