A Chronicle of Garden Fountains

The translation of hundreds of ancient Greek texts into Latin was commissioned by the scholarly Pope Nicholas V who led the Church in Rome from 1397 till 1455. Beautifying Rome and making it the worthy capital of the Christian world was at the heart of his ambitions. 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. Building a mostra, an imposing celebratory fountain built by ancient Romans to memorialize the arrival point of an aqueduct, was a custom revived by Nicholas V. The architect Leon Battista Alberti was directed by the Pope to construct a wall fountain where we now see the Trevi Fountain. The Trevi Fountain as well as the well-known baroque fountains found in the Piazza del Popolo and the Piazza Navona were eventually supplied with view publisher site water from the altered aqueduct he had rebuilt.