The History of Garden Fountains

Himself a learned man, Pope Nicholas V headed the Roman Catholic Church from 1397 till 1455 and was responsible for the translation of scores of age-old texts from their original Greek into Latin. Beautifying Rome and making it the worthy capital of the Christian world was at the heart of his ambitions. In 1453 the Pope commissioned the repairing of the Aqua Vergine, an ancient Roman aqueduct which had carried clean drinking water into the city from eight miles away. Building a mostra, an imposing commemorative fountain built by ancient Romans to memorialize the entry point of an aqueduct, was a custom revived by Nicholas V. The architect Leon Battista Alberti was directed by the Pope to put up a wall fountain where we now see the Trevi Fountain. The Trevi Fountain as well as the renowned baroque fountains found in the Piazza del Popolo and the Piazza Navona were eventually supplied with water from the altered aqueduct he had discover this info here rebuilt.