Bernini's Early Showpieces

Bernini's Early Showpieces The Barcaccia, Bernini's very first fountain, is a striking chef d'oeuvre built at the bottom of the Trinita dei Monti in Piaza di Spagna. This area is still filled with Roman locals and tourists who enjoy exchanging gossip or going over the day's news. Today, the city streets surrounding Bernini's fountain are a trendy area where people go to meet, something which the artist would have been pleased to learn. Dating back to around 1630, Pope Urbano VIII mandated what was to be the earliest fountain of the artist's career. Depicted in the fountain's design is a great vessel slowly sinking into the Mediterranean Sea. The great flooding of the Tevere that blanketed the whole region with water in the 16th was commemorated by this momentous fountain as recorded by documents dating back to this time. In what turned out to be his one and only prolonged absence from Italy, Bernini {journeyed | traveled] to France in 1665.

Aqueducts: The Solution to Rome's Water Challenges

Aqueducts: Solution Rome's Water Challenges 4846154459843518.jpg

Aqueducts: The Solution to Rome's Water Challenges With the building of the very first raised aqueduct in Rome, the Aqua Anio Vetus in 273 BC, individuals who lived on the city’s foothills no longer had to rely solely on naturally-occurring spring water for their requirements. When aqueducts or springs weren’t easily accessible, people living at higher elevations turned to water removed from underground or rainwater, which was made possible by wells and cisterns. To provide water to Pincian Hill in the early sixteenth century, they applied the brand-new technique of redirecting the movement from the Acqua Vergine aqueduct’s underground network. Pozzi, or manholes, were constructed at regular intervals along the aqueduct’s channel. While these manholes were provided to make it much easier to protect the aqueduct, it was also possible to use buckets to pull water from the channel, which was done by Cardinal Marcello Crescenzi from the time he invested in the property in 1543 to his death in 1552. Though the cardinal also had a cistern to collect rainwater, it didn’t produce sufficient water. To give himself with a much more streamlined way to obtain water, he had one of the manholes opened, offering him access to the aqueduct below his residence.

The History of Fountains

The History of Fountains The translation of hundreds of classic Greek texts into Latin was commissioned by the learned Pope Nicholas V who ruled the Church in Rome from 1397 till 1455. History Fountains 1156069300.jpg

He undertook the embellishment of Rome to make it into the worthy capital of the Christian world. At the bidding of the Pope, the Aqua Vergine, a ruined aqueduct which had transported clean drinking water into Rome from eight miles away, was restored starting in 1453. The historical Roman custom of marking the entry point of an aqueduct with an magnificent celebratory fountain, also known as a mostra, 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 Trevi Fountain as well as the well-known baroque fountains found in the Piazza del Popolo and the Piazza Navona were eventually supplied with water from the modified aqueduct he had reconstructed.