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The Fontana della Barcaccia (; "Fountain of the Boat") is a
The sculptural fountain is made into the shape of a half-sunken ship with water overflowing its sides into a small basin. The source of the water comes from the Acqua Vergine, an aqueduct from 19 BCE. Bernini built this fountain to be slightly below street level due to the low water pressure from the aqueduct. Water flows from seven points of fountain: the center baluster; two inside the boat from sun-shaped human faces; and four outside the boat.
According to legend, as the River Tiber flooded in 1598, water carried a small boat into the Piazza di Spagna. When the water receded, a boat was deposited in the center of the square, and it was this event that inspired Bernini's creation. The fountain is decorated with the papal coat of arms of the Barberini family as a reminder of Pope Urban VIII's ancestry.
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/ref> stepped into the fountain and threw bottles and rubbish in it before clashing with the police.
Web gallery of Art
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Fontana Della Barcaccia Barcaccia Baroque sculpture 1627 works Rome R. IV Campo Marzio Ships in art
Baroque
The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...
-style fountain found at the foot of the Spanish Steps in Rome's Piazza di Spagna (Spanish Square). Pope Urban VIII
Pope Urban VIII ( la, Urbanus VIII; it, Urbano VIII; baptised 5 April 1568 – 29 July 1644), born Maffeo Vincenzo Barberini, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 6 August 1623 to his death in July 1644. As po ...
commissioned Pietro Bernini in 1623 to build the fountain as part of a prior Papal project to erect a fountain in every major piazza in Rome. The fountain was completed between 1627 and 1629 by Pietro possibly along with the help of his son Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Gian Lorenzo (or Gianlorenzo) Bernini (, , ; Italian Giovanni Lorenzo; 7 December 159828 November 1680) was an Italian sculptor and architect. While a major figure in the world of architecture, he was more prominently the leading sculptor of his ...
, especially after his father's death on August 29, 1629.
Description
The sculptural fountain is made into the shape of a half-sunken ship with water overflowing its sides into a small basin. The source of the water comes from the Acqua Vergine, an aqueduct from 19 BCE. Bernini built this fountain to be slightly below street level due to the low water pressure from the aqueduct. Water flows from seven points of fountain: the center baluster; two inside the boat from sun-shaped human faces; and four outside the boat.
According to legend, as the River Tiber flooded in 1598, water carried a small boat into the Piazza di Spagna. When the water receded, a boat was deposited in the center of the square, and it was this event that inspired Bernini's creation. The fountain is decorated with the papal coat of arms of the Barberini family as a reminder of Pope Urban VIII's ancestry.
Damage and restoration
On May 15, 2007 four drunken tourists damaged the monumental fountain with a large screwdriver inflicting a deep scratch, with the consequent detachment of a significant part of the papal coat of arms. The carabinieri rushed to the place were attacked by the four vandals, but still managed to get them under arrest and prevent further damage. Restoration on the fountain has been carried out several times, the last being in 2014, through a private donation of €209,960. A few weeks after the unveiling, the fountain was damaged on 19 February 2015 by a group of Dutchfootball
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
hooligans, who were in Rome to support Rotterdam-based club Feyenoord in a Europa League match against A.S. Roma. The group, allegedly under the influence of alcohol and drugs,/ref> stepped into the fountain and threw bottles and rubbish in it before clashing with the police.
In popular culture
The English poetJohn Keats
John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculo ...
could hear the sound of the fountain's water flowing soothingly from his deathbed. He said it reminded him of lines from the 17th-century play '' Philaster, or Love Lies a-Bleeding'' (1611) and was the source for his epitaph: "Here lies one whose name was writ in water."
Jess Walter uses the fountain as a plot device in '' Beautiful Ruins''.
See also
*List of works by Gian Lorenzo Bernini
The following is a list of works of sculpture, architecture, and painting by the Italian Baroque artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Gian Lorenzo (or Gianlorenzo) Bernini (, , ; Italian Giovanni Lorenzo; 7 December 159828 November 1680) was an Italian ...
References
External links
Web gallery of Art
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Fontana Della Barcaccia Barcaccia Baroque sculpture 1627 works Rome R. IV Campo Marzio Ships in art