Where did Large Outdoor Fountains Begin?
Where did Large Outdoor Fountains Begin? The amazing or decorative effect of a fountain is just one of the purposes it fulfills, as well as providing drinking water and adding a decorative touch to your property. From the beginning, outdoor fountains were soley meant to serve as functional elements. 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 more elevated than the fountain so that gravity could make the water flow downwards or shoot high into the air. Acting as an element of adornment and celebration, fountains also generated clean, fresh drinking water. Animals or heroes made of bronze or stone masks were often used by Romans to decorate their fountains. During the Middle Ages, Muslim and Moorish garden designers included fountains in their designs to re-create the gardens of paradise. King Louis XIV of France wanted to demonstrate his dominion over nature by including fountains in the Gardens of Versailles. Seventeen and 18 century Popes sought to extol their positions by adding decorative baroque-style fountains at the point where restored Roman aqueducts arrived into the city.
Indoor plumbing became the key source of water by the end of the 19th century thereby limiting urban fountains to mere decorative elements. The creation of special water effects and the recycling of water were 2 things made possible by swapping gravity with mechanical pumps.
Nowadays, fountains adorn public areas and are used to recognize individuals or events and fill recreational and entertainment needs.
Builders of the First Water Fountains
Builders of the First Water Fountains Often working as architects, sculptors, artists, engineers and highly educated scholars all in one, from the 16th to the later part of the 18th century, fountain designers were multi-faceted people, Exemplifying the Renaissance skilled artist as a imaginative legend, Leonardo da Vinci worked as an inventor and scientific expert. He carefully captured his findings in his now renowned notebooks, following his immense fascination in the forces of nature guided him to examine the characteristics and movement of water.
Innovative water exhibits loaded with symbolic significance and all-natural charm converted private villa settings when early Italian water fountain creators paired creativity with hydraulic and gardening abilities. Known for his incredible skill in archeology, architecture and garden design, Pirro Ligorio, the humanist, delivered the vision behind the magnificence in Tivoli. Other fountain developers, masterminding the extraordinary water marbles, water attributes and water humor for the various mansions near Florence, were well-versed in humanistic subjects and classical scientific texts.
The History of Garden Fountains
The History of Garden Fountains
Hundreds of ancient Greek documents were translated into Latin under the authority of the scholarly Pope Nicholas V, who ruled the Roman Catholic Church from 1397 to 1455. He undertook the beautification of Rome to make it into the model seat of the Christian world. Restoration of the Acqua Vergine, a desolate Roman aqueduct which had carried fresh drinking water into the city from eight miles away, began in 1453 at the behest of the Pope. A mostra, a monumental celebratory fountain built by ancient Romans to mark the point of entry of an aqueduct, was a tradition which was restored by Nicholas V. The present-day location of the Trevi Fountain was formerly occupied by a wall fountain commissioned by the Pope and built by the architect Leon Battista Alberti. Changes 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.