Where did Large Garden Fountains Originate from?
Where did Large Garden Fountains Originate from? A fountain, an amazing piece of engineering, not only supplies drinking water as it pours into a basin, it can also propel water high into the air for an extraordinary effect.
From the onset, outdoor fountains were soley meant to serve as functional elements. 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. Until the late nineteenth, century most water fountains functioned using gravity to allow water to flow or jet into the air, therefore, they needed a supply of water such as a reservoir or aqueduct located higher than the fountain. Fountains were an excellent source of water, and also served to adorn living areas and memorialize the artist. The main materials used by the Romans to build their fountains were bronze or stone masks, mostly illustrating animals or heroes. To illustrate the gardens of paradise, Muslim and Moorish garden planners of the Middle Ages introduced fountains to their designs. Fountains played a significant role in the Gardens of Versailles, all part of French King Louis XIV’s desire to exert his power over nature. The Romans of the 17th and 18th centuries manufactured baroque decorative fountains to glorify the Popes who commissioned them as well as to mark the location where the restored Roman aqueducts entered the city.
Since indoor plumbing became the norm of the day for fresh, 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 bring recycled water into living spaces as well as create unique water effects.
Nowadays, fountains decorate public areas and are used to recognize individuals or events and fill recreational and entertainment needs.
The History of Wall Fountains
The History of Wall Fountains The translation of hundreds of classical Greek texts into Latin was commissioned by the scholarly Pope Nicholas V who led the Church in Rome from 1397 until 1455. Embellishing Rome and making it the worthy capital of the Christian world was at the center of his objectives. Reconstruction of the Acqua Vergine, a ruined Roman aqueduct which had carried fresh drinking water into the city from eight miles away, began in 1453 at the bidding of the Pope. The ancient Roman tradition of building an awe-inspiring commemorative fountain at the location where an aqueduct arrived, also known as a mostra, was restored by Nicholas V.
The present-day location of the Trevi Fountain was previously occupied by a wall fountain commissioned by the Pope and constructed by the architect Leon Battista Alberti. Changes and extensions, included in the restored aqueduct, eventually provided the Trevi Fountain and the well-known baroque fountains in the Piazza del Popolo and Piazza Navona with the necessary water supply.
Water Delivery Solutions in Early Rome
Water Delivery Solutions in Early Rome
Rome’s very first elevated aqueduct, Aqua Anio Vetus, was built in 273 BC; prior to that, inhabitants living at higher elevations had to depend on natural streams for their water. During this time period, there were only 2 other innovations capable of offering water to high areas, subterranean wells and cisterns, which gathered rainwater. To offer water to Pincian Hill in the early sixteenth century, they employed the emerging tactic of redirecting the stream from the Acqua Vergine aqueduct’s underground channel. Throughout the time of its original building and construction, pozzi (or manholes) were placed at set intervals alongside the aqueduct’s channel. The manholes made it easier to thoroughly clean the channel, but it was also possible to use buckets to pull water from the aqueduct, as we saw with Cardinal Marcello Crescenzi when he operated the property from 1543 to 1552, the year he died. Apparently, the rainwater cistern on his property wasn’t adequate to fulfill his needs. To provide himself with a more streamlined system to obtain water, he had one of the manholes opened, providing him access to the aqueduct below his residence.