The Genesis Of Fountains
The Genesis Of Fountains A water fountain is an architectural piece that pours water into a basin or jets it high into the air in order to provide drinking water, as well as for decorative purposes.From the onset, 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 drinking water as well as water where they could bathe or wash. Until the late nineteenth, century most water fountains functioned using the force of 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 not only used as a water source for drinking water, but also to adorn homes and celebrate the designer who created it. Animals or heroes made of bronze or stone masks were often times used by Romans to beautify their fountains.
During the Middle Ages, Muslim and Moorish garden designers included fountains in their designs to re-create 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 construction of baroque style fountains in the spot where the aqueducts entered the city of Rome
The end of the 19th century saw the increase in usage of indoor plumbing to provide drinking water, so urban fountains were relegated to strictly decorative elements. Fountains using mechanical pumps instead of gravity enabled fountains to deliver recycled water into living spaces as well as create unique water effects.
Nowadays, fountains decorate public spaces and are used to recognize individuals or events and fill recreational and entertainment needs.
Garden Water Fountain Designers Through History
Garden Water Fountain Designers Through History
Often working as architects, sculptors, artists, engineers and cultivated scholars all in one, from the 16th to the late 18th century, fountain designers were multi-talented people, Throughout the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci illustrated the artist as an innovative intellect, creator and scientific virtuoso. With his immense curiosity concerning the forces of nature, he examined the characteristics and mobility of water and also carefully documented his examinations in his now much celebrated notebooks. Early Italian water fountain designers changed private villa settings into amazing water displays complete of symbolic meaning and natural charm by combining creativity with hydraulic and gardening expertise. Known for his virtuosity in archeology, architecture and garden creations, Pirro Ligorio, the humanist, offered the vision behind the magnificence in Tivoli. Masterminding the phenomenal water marbles, water features and water jokes for the numerous properties near Florence, some other water feature engineers were well versed in humanistic issues as well as classical technical texts.
The Dissemination of Fountain Design Knowledge
The Dissemination of Fountain Design Knowledge Throughout the European countries, the primary means of spreading useful hydraulic understanding and fountain design suggestions were the circulated papers and illustrated publications of the time, which contributed to the advancement of scientific technology. An internationally recognized innovator in hydraulics in the late 1500's was a French fountain designer, whose name has been lost to history. By designing landscapes and grottoes with integrated and amazing water attributes, he began his career in Italy by receiving imperial mandates in Brussels, London and Germany. He penned a book named “The Principles of Moving Forces” towards the end of his lifetime while in France which turned into the fundamental text on hydraulic mechanics and engineering. Explaining the latest hydraulic technologies, the publication also updated key hydraulic developments of classical antiquity. As a mechanical method to push water, Archimedes made the water screw, fundamental among important hydraulic discoveries. An beautiful spring with the sun warming the liquid in two vessels concealed in a neighboring accommodation was presented in one illustration. What occurs is the hot liquid expanded, rises and locks up the pipes heading to the water feature, and thus leading to activation. Pumps, water wheels, water attributes and garden pond designs are mentioned in the book.
The Source of Today's Fountains
The Source of Today's Fountains Pope Nicholas V, himself a learned man, reigned the Roman Catholic Church from 1397 to 1455 during which time he commissioned many translations of ancient classical Greek texts into Latin. He undertook the embellishment of Rome to turn it into the model capital of the Christian world. Reconstruction of the Acqua Vergine, a desolate Roman aqueduct which had transported clean drinking water into the city from eight miles away, began in 1453 at the bidding of the Pope. Building a mostra, a grandiose commemorative fountain built by ancient Romans to memorialize the arrival point of an aqueduct, was a custom revived by Nicholas V. The Trevi Fountain now occupies the area previously filled with a wall fountain built by Leon Battista Albert, an architect employed by the Pope. 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.