Italian Water Fountains: The Roman Fascination - By: Felicity Lightbody

Water features are powerfully associated to the Roman civilisation in particular because water had a stout religious implication. This was not unusual in the cultures of the times as the early Greek religions also placed a lot of trust in water and water springs were improved into shrines to kings and nymphs as well as their gods and goddesses. The Greeks understood that the ability for a community to live comes from a sustainable source of good water and so the places where their water sprung from were heralded as a blessing. They also had the means to convey this wholesome water to other areas via pipes or aqueducts. The Greeks had detailed many fountains in their history books, such as The Spring of Pirene at Corinth, which comprised of several springs coming out of a white stone mural to Pegasus, with a basin at the bottom. In the same city, there was additional fountain shrine to Neptune, which included a dolphin with water flowing from its mouth.

Even today it is straight forward to distringuish how these early works have inspired later and even modern models. The Romans were very taken with these calming fountains and understood the significance and importance of the aqueducts too. They made this type of fountains their own by using their own religious and heroic icons to beautify the fountains, as well as using the skill of the time to guarantee the availability of fresh natural spring water to all areas of their empire.

Even today, Italy holds the scars of these aqueducts by the side of the area amid Campagna to the capital, Rome. This was one of the major considerable turning points in Roman history, as the renewal of their capital, with a clean supply of water was marked with a wonderful set of public fountains, where the plebarians could get fresh water from. Of course, there were wealthy and significant members of Roman culture who were able to hire their own private water source and hand made their own fountains to party. Examples of private statues are spraying a great water jet to a lower basin.

Even today, visitors to Rome, discover the fountains to be a controlling and awe inspiring scenery, particularly the Trevi Fountain, which signalled the end of an aqueduct, made in 19BC, bringing water from the Salone Springs, over 20 KM from Rome. There is a myth connected to this precise fountain, that if you turn your back to the fountain and throw in a coin and it lands in the water, you will come back to Rome but if not, you will not. This has apparently survived from the era when soldiers would make an offering to their gods before going on a voyage into war, which just illustrates how the religious worth of the Roman fountains has not at all been lost in time.

About the Author

Felicity is a intermittent author, writing intermittent articles in the UK about Garden Water Fountains. They also specialise in Alan Titchmarsh water features and deliver throughout the UK, with showrooms based near to Manchester. ukwaterfeatures.com

Article Directory Source: http://www.articlerich.com/profile/Felicity-Lightbody/39388

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