Bernini: The Genius Behind Italy's Greatest Water Fountains

Bernini: The Genius Behind Italy's Greatest Water Fountains The Barcaccia, Bernini's first fountain, is a striking chef d'oeuvre built at the bottom of the Trinita dei Monti in Piaza di Spagna. To this day, this spot is flooded with Roman locals and tourists alike who enjoy debate and each other's company. Bernini would without a doubt have been happy to know that people still flock to what has become one the city's most fashionable areas, that surrounding his amazing water fountain. In around 1630, Pope Urbano VIII helped Bernini start off his professional life with the construction of his very first fountain. People can now see the fountain as a depiction of a commanding ship gradually sinking into the Mediterranean. The great flooding of the Tevere that blanketed the whole region with water in the 16th was memorialized by this momentous fountain as recorded by reports dating back to this period. Absenting himself from Italy only once in his life for a prolonged period of time, in 1665 Bernini voyaged to France.

Contemporary Sculpture in Early Greece

Contemporary Sculpture Early Greece 2859590075828.jpg

Contemporary Sculpture in Early Greece Though most sculptors were paid by the temples to decorate the detailed columns and archways with renderings of the gods of old, as the period came to a close, it became more common for sculptors to depict ordinary people as well because plenty of Greeks had started to think of their religion as superstitious rather than sacred. Often times, a representation of affluent families' ancestors would be commissioned to be placed inside of huge familial tombs, and portraiture, which would be copied by the Romans upon their conquest of Greek civilization, also became commonplace. A time of artistic development, the use of sculpture and alternate art forms morphed throughout the Greek Classical period, so it is inexact to say that the arts served only one function. It may possibly be the advanced quality of Greek sculpture that grabs our eye today; it was on a leading-edge practice of the ancient world regardless of whether it was made for religious purposes or aesthetic pleasure.

The Root of Modern Wall Fountains

The Root of Modern Wall Fountains Himself a learned man, Pope Nicholas V headed the Roman Catholic Church from 1397 till 1455 and was responsible for the translation of scores of age-old texts from their original Greek into Latin. It was imperative for him to embellish the city of Rome to make it worthy of being known as the 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 renovated starting in 1453. A mostra, a monumental commemorative fountain constructed by ancient Romans to mark the point of arrival of an aqueduct, was a practice which was restored by Nicholas V. The architect Leon Battista Alberti was directed by the Pope to construct a wall fountain where we now see the Trevi Fountain. The water which eventually supplied the Trevi Fountain as well as the famed baroque fountains in the Piazza del Popolo and Piazza Navona flowed from the modified aqueduct which he had renovated.