Bernini’s First Italian Fountains
Bernini’s First Italian Fountains
One can see Bernini's very first masterpiece, the Barcaccia fountain, at the base of the Trinita dei Monti in Piaza di Spagna. To this day, this area is filled with Roman locals and tourists alike who enjoy debate and each other's company. Today, the city streets around Bernini's fountain are a trendy place where people go to meet, something which the artist would have been pleased to learn. In around 1630, Pope Urbano VIII helped Bernini start off his professional life with the construction of his first fountain. Illustrated in the fountain's design is a large vessel gradually sinking into the Mediterranean Sea. The great flooding of the Tevere that blanketed the whole region with water in the 16th was commemorated by this momentous fountain as recorded by documents dating back to this time. In 1665, France was graced by Bernini's one-and-only prolonged trip outside of Italy.
The Origins Of Wall Fountains
The Origins Of Wall Fountains The incredible construction of a fountain allows it to provide clean water or shoot water high into air for dramatic effect and it can also serve as an excellent design feature to complete your home.Originally, fountains only served a practical purpose. Water fountains were linked to a spring or aqueduct to provide drinkable water as well as bathing water for cities, townships and villages. Up until the nineteenth, fountains had to be more elevated and closer to a water source, including aqueducts and reservoirs, in order to take advantage of gravity which fed the fountains. Fountains were not only utilized as a water source for drinking water, but also to adorn homes and celebrate the designer who created it.
The main components used by the Romans to create their fountains were bronze or stone masks, mostly illustrating animals or heroes. Throughout the Middle Ages, Muslim and Moorish garden planners included fountains to create mini variations of the gardens of paradise. To demonstrate his dominance over nature, French King Louis XIV included fountains in the Garden of Versailles. The Romans of the 17th and 18th centuries created baroque decorative fountains to glorify 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 functioned only as decorative and celebratory adornments since indoor plumbing provided the essential drinking water. Fountains using mechanical pumps instead of gravity helped fountains to provide recycled water into living spaces as well as create special water effects.
Nowadays, fountains adorn public areas and are used to recognize individuals or events and fill recreational and entertainment needs.