Building Survey of an Urban Water Architecture of the late Cinquecento

Under the short pontificate (1585-1590) Sixtus V., the Pope planned and realized - together with his architects Domenico and Giovanni Fontana - an extensive building programme for Rome: in addition to the construction of the characteristic road axes connecting the pilgrim churches and the erection of numerous new sacral and profane buildings, it was above all the extension of the water supply system for the so-called monti, which until then had been insufficiently supplied, that he advanced. For this purpose, he revitalized and expanded the ancient Aqua Alexandrina, which then as Acqua Felice supplied, among other things, the Quirinal with water, whose triumphal entry into the city is celebrated by the huge terminal fountain "Mostra dell'Acqua Felice".
Staged to the highest degree as a distribution structure for water and as a model, even as a prototype for later monumental fountains (Fontana dell'Acqua Paola, Fontana di Trevi) of the baroque era of the city, the Mostra dell'Acqua Felice has so far experienced a completely inadequate scientific examination.
In the context of an introductory event we will approach to the genesis, the typology and the different levels of meaning of the fountain; between calendar week 30 and 33 we will then encounter the water architecture in reality. In the frame of a approximately 10-day excursion to Rome, we will continue the building survey already begun in two recent campaigns.