Where did Fountains Come From?
Where did Fountains Come From? The amazing or decorative effect of a fountain is just one of the purposes it fulfills, in addition to supplying drinking water and adding a decorative touch to your property.Pure functionality was the original role of fountains. Water fountains were linked to a spring or aqueduct to supply drinkable water as well as bathing water for cities, townships and villages. Until the late nineteenth, century most water fountains functioned using the force of gravity to allow water to flow or jet into the air, therefore, they needed a source of water such as a reservoir or aqueduct located higher than the fountain. Fountains were an optimal source of water, and also served to decorate living areas and memorialize the designer. Animals or heroes made of bronze or stone masks were often times utilized by Romans to decorate their fountains.
To replicate the gardens of paradise, Muslim and Moorish garden planners of the Middle Ages introduced fountains to their designs. To show his prominence 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 exalt the Popes who commissioned them as well as to mark the location where the restored Roman aqueducts entered the city.
Since indoor plumbing became the norm of the day for fresh, drinking water, by the end of the 19th century urban fountains were no longer needed for this purpose and they became purely decorative. Fountains using mechanical pumps instead of gravity allowed fountains to bring recycled water into living spaces as well as create unique water effects.
Modern-day fountains function mostly as decoration for open spaces, to honor individuals or events, and compliment entertainment and recreational events.
Agrippa’s Marvelous Water-lifting Machine
Agrippa’s Marvelous Water-lifting Machine Though the machine developed by Agrippa for moving water gained the respect of Andrea Bacci in 1588, it seemed to fade not very long after. Merely years afterward, in 1592, the earliest contemporary Roman aqueduct, the Acqua Felice, was connected to the Medici’s villa, possibly making the technology outmoded. The more plausible conclusion is that the unit was abandoned once Franceso di Medici, Ferdinando’s siblingexpired in 1588, leading him to give up his job as cardinal and go back to Florence where he accepted the throne as the Grand Duke of Tuscany. It could violate gravitation to lift water to Renaissance gardens, providing them in a way other late 16th century models like scenographic water exhibits, musical fountains and giochi d’acqua or water caprices, were not.