When and Where Did Water Features Emerge?
When and Where Did Water Features Emerge? Hundreds of ancient Greek records were translated into Latin under the auspices of the scholarly Pope Nicholas V, who ruled the Roman Catholic Church from 1397 to 1455. He undertook the beautification of Rome to turn it into the model capital of the Christian world. At the behest of the Pope, the Aqua Vergine, a ruined aqueduct which had transported clean drinking water into Rome from eight miles away, was reconditioned starting in 1453. Building a mostra, an imposing celebratory fountain built by ancient Romans to memorialize the entry point of an aqueduct, was a custom revived 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.
Changes and extensions, included in the restored aqueduct, eventually supplied the Trevi Fountain and the well-known baroque fountains in the Piazza del Popolo and Piazza Navona with the necessary water supply.
Where did Large Outdoor Fountains Begin?
Where did Large Outdoor Fountains Begin? The amazing or ornamental effect of a fountain is just one of the purposes it fulfills, as well as providing drinking water and adding a decorative touch to your property. Pure functionality was the original purpose of fountains. People in cities, towns and villages received their drinking water, as well as water to bathe and wash, via aqueducts or springs in the vicinity. Used until the nineteenth century, in order for fountains to flow or shoot up into the air, their origin of water such as reservoirs or aqueducts, had to be higher than the water fountain in order to benefit from gravity. Fountains were not only utilized as a water source for drinking water, but also to decorate homes and celebrate the artist who created it. Animals or heroes made of bronze or stone masks were often times utilized by Romans to beautify their fountains. Throughout the Middle Ages, Muslim and Moorish garden planners included fountains to create smaller depictions of the gardens of paradise. King Louis XIV of France wanted to demonstrate his superiority over nature by including fountains in the Gardens of Versailles. To mark the entrance of the restored Roman aqueducts, the Popes of the 17th and 18th centuries commissioned the construction of baroque style fountains in the spot where the aqueducts entered the city of Rome
Since indoor plumbing became the norm of the day for clean, drinking water, by the end of the 19th century urban fountains were no longer needed for this purpose and they became purely ornamental. Fountains using mechanical pumps instead of gravity allowed fountains to provide recycled water into living spaces as well as create special water effects.
These days, fountains decorate public spaces and are used to pay tribute to individuals or events and fill recreational and entertainment needs.
Aqueducts: The Remedy to Rome's Water Challenges
Aqueducts: The Remedy to Rome's Water Challenges
Rome’s first elevated aqueduct, Aqua Anio Vetus, was built in 273 BC; before that, inhabitants residing at higher elevations had to depend on local springs for their water. If citizens living at higher elevations did not have accessibility to springs or the aqueduct, they’d have to be dependent on the other existing techniques of the time, cisterns that compiled rainwater from the sky and subterranean wells that drew the water from under ground. To deliver water to Pincian Hill in the early sixteenth century, they implemented the new tactic of redirecting the motion from the Acqua Vergine aqueduct’s underground channel. As originally constructed, the aqueduct was provided along the length of its channel with pozzi (manholes) constructed at regular intervals. Even though they were initially planned to make it possible to service the aqueduct, Cardinal Marcello Crescenzi began using the manholes to collect water from the channel, opening when he purchased the property in 1543. The cistern he had made to collect rainwater wasn’t satisfactory to meet his water requirements. Thankfully, the aqueduct sat just below his residence, and he had a shaft established to give him access.