Bernini's First Masterpieces

Bernini's First Masterpieces The Barcaccia, Bernini's very first water fountain, is a striking chef d'oeuvre built at the bottom of the Trinita dei Monti in Piaza di Spagna. To this day, this spot is filled with Roman locals and tourists alike who enjoy debate and each other's company. The streets surrounding his fountain have come to be one of the city’s most fashionable gathering places, something which would certainly have pleased Bernini himself. In about 1630, the great master built the first fountain of his career at the behest of Pope Ubano VIII. The fountain’s central theme is based on an enormous vessel slowly sinking into the Mediterranean. The great flooding of the Tevere that blanketed the whole region with water in the 16th was memorialized by this momentous fountain as recorded by documents dating back to this period. In what became his one and only prolonged absence from Italy, Bernini {journeyed | traveled] to France in 1665.

The Original Outdoor Water Fountains

The Original Outdoor Water Fountains Villages and villages relied on working water fountains to funnel water for cooking, bathing, and cleaning from nearby sources like lakes, channels, or creeks. To make water flow through a fountain until the late 1800’s, and generate a jet of water, required gravity and a water source such as a creek or lake, positioned higher than the fountain. Fountains all through history have been designed as memorials, impressing hometown citizens and travelers alike. If you saw the earliest fountains, you would not recognize them as fountains. Simple stone basins crafted from nearby stone were the first fountains, used for religious purposes and drinking water. 2000 BC is when the earliest identified stone fountain basins were used. Early fountains put to use in ancient civilizations relied on gravity to regulate the flow of water through the fountain. Drinking water was delivered by public fountains, long before fountains became decorative public monuments, as pretty as they are functional. Fountains with embellished Gods, mythological monsters, and animals began to appear in Rome in about 6 BC, made from rock and bronze. The remarkable aqueducts of Rome provided water to the eye-catching public fountains, many of which you can visit today.