The Genesis Of Fountains
The Genesis Of Fountains 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 a noteworthy effect.The primary purpose of a fountain was originally strictly practical.
Cities, towns and villages made use of nearby aqueducts or springs to supply them with potable water as well as water where they could bathe or wash. Up to the late nineteenth century, water fountains had to be near an aqueduct or reservoir and higher than the fountain so that gravity could make the water move down or shoot high into the air. Acting as an element of adornment and celebration, fountains also provided clean, fresh drinking water. Animals or heroes made of bronze or stone masks were often times utilized by Romans to decorate their fountains. To depict the gardens of paradise, Muslim and Moorish garden planners of the Middle Ages added 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. Seventeen and 18 century Popes sought to laud their positions by adding beautiful baroque-style fountains at the point where restored Roman aqueducts arrived into the city.
Urban fountains created at the end of the 19th century functioned only as decorative and celebratory adornments since indoor plumbing provided the necessary drinking water. Fountains using mechanical pumps instead of gravity allowed fountains to deliver recycled water into living spaces as well as create unique water effects.
Beautifying city parks, honoring people or events and entertaining, are some of the purposes of modern-day fountains.
A Chronicle of Outdoor Water Fountains
A Chronicle of Outdoor Water Fountains Hundreds of classic Greek texts were translated into Latin under the authority of the scholarly Pope Nicholas V, who led the Roman Catholic Church from 1397 to 1455. In order to make Rome deserving of being the capital of the Christian world, the Pope decided to embellish the beauty of the city. In 1453 the Pope commissioned the repairing of the Aqua Vergine, an ancient Roman aqueduct which had carried clean drinking water into the city from eight miles away.
A mostra, a monumental dedicatory fountain constructed by ancient Romans to mark the point of entry of an aqueduct, was a custom which was revived by Nicholas V. The present-day site of the Trevi Fountain was previously occupied by a wall fountain commissioned by the Pope and constructed by the architect Leon Battista Alberti. The water which eventually supplied the Trevi Fountain as well as the acclaimed baroque fountains in the Piazza del Popolo and Piazza Navona flowed from the modified aqueduct which he had renovated.