Acqua Vergine: The Answer to Rome's Water Challenges

Acqua Vergine: The Answer to Rome's Water Challenges Prior to 273, when the first elevated aqueduct, Aqua Anio Vetus, was made in Rome, citizens who resided on hills had to travel even further down to gather their water from natural sources. Outside of these aqueducts and springs, wells and rainwater-collecting cisterns were the lone technologies available at the time to supply water to locations of higher elevation. In the very early 16th century, the city began to make use of the water that flowed below the ground through Acqua Vergine to deliver water to Pincian Hill. As originally constructed, the aqueduct was provided along the length of its channel with pozzi (manholes) constructed at regular intervals. During the some nine years he owned the residential property, from 1543 to 1552, Cardinal Marcello Crescenzi used these manholes to take water from the channel in buckets, though they were initially established for the goal of cleaning and maintaining the aqueduct. The cistern he had constructed to gather rainwater wasn’t adequate to meet his water specifications. Thankfully, the aqueduct sat below his property, and he had a shaft opened to give him accessibility.

Fountain Builders Through History

Fountain Builders Through History Water fountain designers were multi-talented individuals from the 16th to the late 18th century, often serving as architects, sculptors, artisans, engineers and highly educated scholars all in one person. Leonardo da Vinci as a imaginative intellect, inventor and scientific virtuoso exemplified this Renaissance creator. He systematically recorded his examinations in his now famed notebooks about his research into the forces of nature and the properties and motion of water. Ingenious water displays loaded with symbolic meaning and all-natural beauty converted private villa settings when early Italian fountain creators fused resourcefulness with hydraulic and landscaping abilities. The magnificence in Tivoli were developed by the humanist Pirro Ligorio, who was renowned for his skill in archeology, engineering and garden design. Masterminding the fascinating water marbles, water attributes and water antics for the assorted estates in the vicinity of Florence, other water fountain designers were well versed in humanistic subjects and ancient technical texts.