Where did Landscape Fountains Begin?
Where did Landscape Fountains Begin? 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.Pure practicality was the original role of fountains. Residents of urban areas, townships and small towns utilized them as a source of drinking water and a place to wash up, which meant that fountains needed to be connected to nearby aqueduct or spring. Up to the late 19th century, water fountains had to be near an aqueduct or reservoir and more elevated than the fountain so that gravity could make the water flow downwards or shoot high into the air. Fountains were an excellent source of water, and also served to decorate living areas and celebrate the artist. Bronze or stone masks of wildlife and heroes were commonly seen on Roman fountains.
Muslims and Moorish garden designers of the Middle Ages included fountains to re-create smaller versions of the gardens of paradise. King Louis XIV of France wanted to demonstrate his dominion over nature by including fountains in the Gardens of Versailles. The Romans of the 17th and 18th centuries created baroque decorative fountains to exalt the Popes who commissioned them as well as to mark the location where the restored Roman aqueducts entered the city.
Urban fountains created at the end of the 19th century served only as decorative and celebratory adornments since indoor plumbing provided the essential drinking water. The creation of unique water effects and the recycling of water were two things made possible by swapping gravity with mechanical pumps.
Contemporary fountains are used to embellish community spaces, honor individuals or events, and enhance recreational and entertainment events.
The First Modern Outdoor Wall Fountains
The First Modern Outdoor Wall Fountains Pope Nicholas V, himself a well educated man, ruled the Roman Catholic Church from 1397 to 1455 during which time he commissioned many translations of ancient classic Greek texts into Latin.
He undertook the beautification of Rome to turn it into the model seat of the Christian world. Reconstruction of the Acqua Vergine, a desolate Roman aqueduct which had carried clean drinking water into the city from eight miles away, began in 1453 at the bidding of the Pope. A mostra, a monumental dedicatory fountain built by ancient Romans to mark the point of arrival of an aqueduct, was a tradition which was restored by Nicholas V. The architect Leon Battista Alberti was commissioned by the Pope to build a wall fountain where we now see the Trevi Fountain. The Trevi Fountain as well as the well-known baroque fountains found in the Piazza del Popolo and the Piazza Navona were eventually supplied with water from the modified aqueduct he had rebuilt.