From Where Did Water Features Originate?

The translation of hundreds of classic Greek texts into Latin was commissioned by the scholarly Pope Nicholas V who led the Church in Rome from 1397 till 1455. In order to make Rome worthy of being the capital of the Christian world, the Pope resolved to embellish the beauty of the city. In 1453 the Pope commissioned the rebuilding of the Aqua Vergine, an ancient Roman aqueduct which had carried fresh drinking water into the city from eight miles away. A mostra, a monumental dedicatory fountain constructed by ancient Romans to mark the point of arrival of an aqueduct, was a practice which was revived by Nicholas V. The architect Leon Battista Alberti was commissioned by the Pope to construct a wall fountain where we now find the Trevi Fountain. The aqueduct he had reconditioned included modifications and extensions which eventually allowed it to supply moved here water to the Trevi Fountain as well as the renowned baroque fountains in the Piazza del Popolo and the Piazza Navona.