Bernini’s Early Italian Fountains

Bernini’s Early Italian Fountains The Barcaccia, a beautiful fountain constructed at the base of the Trinita dei Monti in Piaza di Spagna, was Bernini's earliest fountain. This area is still filled with Roman locals and tourists who enjoy exchanging gossip or going over the day's news. One of the city’s most stylish gathering places are the streets surrounding Bernini's fountain, which would undoubtedly have brought a smile to the great Bernini. In about 1630, the great master designed the very first water fountain of his career at the behest of Pope Ubano VIII. People can now see the fountain as a depiction of a great ship slowly sinking into the Mediterranean Sea. Period writings dating back to the 16th century show that the fountain was built as a monument to those who lost their lives in the great flooding of the Tevere. Absenting himself from Italy only once in his life for a prolonged time period, in 1665 Bernini traveled to France.

When and Where Did Water Features Emerge?

When and Where Did Water Features Emerge? Hundreds of ancient Greek documents were translated into Latin under the auspices of the scholarly Pope Nicholas V, who led the Roman Catholic Church from 1397 to 1455. Water Features Emerge? 0335745658232881.jpg

Water Features Emerge? 0335745658232881.jpg

It was important for him to beautify the city of Rome to make it worthy of being called the capital of the Christian world. In 1453 the Pope commissioned the rebuilding of the Aqua Vergine, an historic Roman aqueduct which had carried clean drinking water into the city from eight miles away. Building a mostra, a grandiose celebratory fountain built by ancient Romans to memorialize the entry point of an aqueduct, was a custom revived by Nicholas V. The Trevi Fountain now occupies the space formerly filled with a wall fountain crafted by Leon Battista Albert, an architect employed by the Pope. The Trevi Fountain as well as the well-known baroque fountains located in the Piazza del Popolo and the Piazza Navona were eventually supplied with water from the altered aqueduct he had reconstructed.