The First Modern Wall Fountains

The First Modern Wall Fountains The translation of hundreds of classical Greek documents into Latin was commissioned by the scholarly Pope Nicholas V who led the Church in Rome from 1397 till 1455. It was imperative for him to embellish the city of Rome to make it worthy of being called the capital of the Christian world. In 1453 the Pope instigated the repairing of the Aqua Vergine, an historic Roman aqueduct which had carried clean drinking water into the city from eight miles away. The historical Roman custom of marking the arrival point of an aqueduct with an magnificent celebratory fountain, also known as a mostra, was restored by Nicholas V. The Trevi Fountain now occupies the area formerly filled with a wall fountain built by Leon Battista Albert, an architect commissioned by the Pope. Modifications and extensions, included in the repaired aqueduct, eventually supplied the Trevi Fountain and the well-known baroque fountains in the Piazza del Popolo and Piazza Navona with the necessary water supply.

Inventors of the First Outside Garden Fountains

Inventors of the First Outside Garden Fountains Water fountain designers were multi-talented individuals from the 16th to the late 18th century, often serving as architects, sculptors, artists, engineers and highly educated scholars all in one. Exemplifying the Renaissance skilled artist as a innovative genius, Leonardo da Vinci toiled as an inventor and scientific guru. The forces of nature inspired him to analyze the qualities and motion of water, and due to his curiosity, he methodically documented his ideas in his now renowned notebooks. Coupling inventiveness with hydraulic and landscaping abilities, early Italian fountain engineers changed private villa settings into amazing water displays filled of symbolic meaning and natural elegance. The humanist Pirro Ligorio, renowned for his virtuosity in archeology, architecture and garden design, delivered the vision behind the splendors in Tivoli. Other water feature developers, masterminding the phenomenal water marbles, water attributes and water jokes for the various properties near Florence, were well-versed in humanistic topics and traditional scientific texts.