The Beginnings of Modern Wall Fountains

The Beginnings of Modern Wall Fountains Himself a learned man, Pope Nicholas V led the Roman Catholic Church from 1397 till 1455 and was responsible for the translation of hundreds of age-old documents from their original Greek into Latin. Embellishing Rome and making it the worthy capital of the Christian world was at the heart of his objectives. Starting in 1453, the ruined ancient Roman aqueduct known as the Aqua Vergine which had brought clean drinking water into the city from eight miles away, underwent repair at the bidding of the Pope. The ancient 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. The architect Leon Battista Alberti was directed by the Pope to put up a wall fountain where we now see 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.

Aqueducts: The Solution to Rome's Water Challenges

Aqueducts: The Solution to Rome's Water Challenges Aqueducts: Solution Rome's Water Challenges 16335496057770203506.jpg

Aqua Anio Vetus, the first raised aqueduct assembled in Rome, started providing the people living in the hills with water in 273 BC, although they had counted on natural springs up till then. Outside of these aqueducts and springs, wells and rainwater-collecting cisterns were the sole techniques readily available at the time to supply water to spots of high elevation. To provide water to Pincian Hill in the early sixteenth century, they utilized the emerging approach of redirecting the flow from the Acqua Vergine aqueduct’s underground network. Throughout the time of its original building and construction, pozzi (or manholes) were situated at set intervals alongside the aqueduct’s channel. Whilst these manholes were manufactured to make it easier to conserve 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 bought the property in 1543 to his passing in 1552. He didn’t get adequate water from the cistern that he had established on his residential property to collect rainwater. To provide himself with a much more streamlined system to gather water, he had one of the manholes opened up, offering him access to the aqueduct below his property.