Contemporary Garden Decoration: Garden Fountains and their Beginnings
Contemporary Garden Decoration: Garden Fountains and their Beginnings A water fountain is an architectural piece that pours water into a basin or jets it high into the air in order to provide drinkable water, as well as for decorative purposes. From the beginning, outdoor fountains were soley meant to serve as functional elements. Cities, towns and villages made use of nearby aqueducts or springs to provide them with potable water as well as water where they could bathe or wash. Up until the nineteenth, fountains had to be more elevated and closer to a water source, such as aqueducts and reservoirs, in order to take advantage of gravity which fed the fountains. Serving as an element of decoration and celebration, fountains also supplied clean, fresh drinking water. Bronze or stone masks of wildlife and heroes were commonly seen on Roman fountains. Muslims and Moorish landscaping designers of the Middle Ages included fountains to re-create smaller models of the gardens of paradise. To demonstrate his dominance over nature, French King Louis XIV included fountains in the Garden of Versailles. To mark the entryway of the restored Roman aqueducts, the Popes of the 17th and 18th centuries commissioned the building of baroque style fountains in the spot where the aqueducts arrived in the city of Rome
Indoor plumbing became the key source of water by the end of the 19th century thereby limiting urban fountains to mere decorative elements. Gravity was replaced by mechanical pumps in order to permit fountains to bring in clean water and allow for beautiful water displays.
Contemporary fountains are used to embellish public spaces, honor individuals or events, and enhance recreational and entertainment events.
Rome’s First Water Delivery Solutions
Rome’s First Water Delivery Solutions
Rome’s first elevated aqueduct, Aqua Anio Vetus, was built in 273 BC; before that, residents living at higher elevations had to depend on natural springs for their water. If residents living at higher elevations did not have access to springs or the aqueduct, they’d have to be dependent on the other existing techniques of the day, cisterns that collected rainwater from the sky and subterranean wells that received the water from under ground. To offer water to Pincian Hill in the early sixteenth century, they applied the brand-new approach of redirecting the circulation from the Acqua Vergine aqueduct’s underground network. Pozzi, or manholes, were made at regular intervals along the aqueduct’s channel. During the roughly 9 years he had the property, from 1543 to 1552, Cardinal Marcello Crescenzi utilized these manholes to take water from the channel in containers, though they were originally designed for the function of maintaining and maintaining the aqueduct. Though the cardinal also had a cistern to get rainwater, it couldn't supply enough water. That is when he decided to create an access point to the aqueduct that ran directly below his property.