The Source of Modern Garden Water Fountains

The Source of Modern Garden Water Fountains Source Modern Garden Water Fountains 189455646514443850.jpg

Hundreds of ancient Greek documents were translated into Latin under the auspices of the scholarly Pope Nicholas V, who ruled the Roman Catholic Church from 1397 to 1455. Beautifying Rome and making it the worthy capital of the Christian world was at the core of his objectives. Starting in 1453, the ruined ancient Roman aqueduct known as the Aqua Vergine which had brought clean drinking water into the city from eight miles away, underwent restoration at the behest of the Pope. The ancient Roman custom of building an awe-inspiring commemorative fountain at the location where an aqueduct arrived, also known as a mostra, was revived by Nicholas V. At the bidding of the Pope, architect Leon Battista Alberti began the construction of a wall fountain in the place where we now find the Trevi Fountain. The Trevi Fountain as well as the well-known baroque fountains located in the Piazza del Popolo and the Piazza Navona were eventually supplied with water from the modified aqueduct he had reconstructed.

Water Transport Strategies in Early Rome

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Water Transport Strategies in Early Rome Aqua Anio Vetus, the first raised aqueduct assembled in Rome, began delivering the individuals living in the hills with water in 273 BC, though they had depended on natural springs up till then. If citizens residing at higher elevations did not have accessibility to springs or the aqueduct, they’d have to depend on the other existing systems of the time, cisterns that accumulated rainwater from the sky and subterranean wells that drew the water from below ground. From the beginning of the sixteenth century, water was routed to Pincian Hill through the underground channel of Acqua Vergine. Throughout the length of the aqueduct’s route were pozzi, or manholes, that gave entry. The manholes made it more straightforward to clean the channel, but it was also possible to use buckets to pull water from the aqueduct, as we saw with Cardinal Marcello Crescenzi when he operated the property from 1543 to 1552, the year he died. The cistern he had constructed to obtain rainwater wasn’t sufficient to meet his water requirements. To give himself with a much more streamlined means to obtain water, he had one of the manholes opened up, giving him access to the aqueduct below his property.