Page 2: The Public Fountains of Rome
The great aqueducts fed the baths and fountains of Rome; and though there were a few private water pipes (from the renting of which the city derived considerable revenue), the majority of the people obtained their water from the public fountains, as the poorer classes in Italy still do today. In Rome, therefore, fountains must have been large and very numerous, and we know from ancient writers that they were considered important architectural features of the city, and were often elaborately decorated with sculptures and bas-relief.
We know, too, that fountains were a common adornment of suburban Roman villas and country houses, and that in such private fountains the water often fell from a high jet into a large marble basin with, at times, a second fall into a still lower receptacle, much after a usual modern form of arrangement. Among the relics at Pompeii (to which we are indebted for so many details of specific knowledge concerning the customs and works of the ancients) not the least interesting are the numerous public and private fountains, supplied by leaden water pipes from the main reservoirs; the private ones elaborately decorated and beautified with bronze and marble figures or mosaic work, while those for public use were situated in almost all the open spaces and crossways of the city, the water spouting through the mouths of human or animal heads set into a wall, and falling into a basin beneath, or rising from some architectural setting in a jet d'eau, as at the eastern end of the peristyle of the Fullonica.
The Italians came therefore by natural inheritance to delight in fountains; and there is no country richer in them, either of medieval or modern construction. They form one of the most characteristic features of Italy, and memories of them dwell long among the traveler's impressions. "What fascinating visions," says a recent writer, perhaps seen through slender columns against a background of intricately interwoven design, where the water, after escaping from the jets, flows with gentle lapses along conduits of marble". The very phrase 'Italian Fountains' suggests to the imagination, which forthwith unrolls before the inner eye in long sequence a chain of delightful memories!
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