For the book «Le fontane di Roma nelle piazze, e luoghi publici della città» by Giovanni Battista Falda it was rather difficult to find a connection to other books. The reason therefore is that the book consists mostly of pictures regarding the fountains in the city of Rome, other water sources in this time and also gardens.
Because of the title of this book, my first research in Alice was with the topic “Rome” and the text “water”. The first two books weren’t really compatible with my book. But the third book “Haskell, Patrons and painters” caught my interest with the phrase:
“Grandiose fountains brought fresh water to wholly new residential areas.”
I then took a closer look at the context of the phrase. It said that the time the dome of St Peter’s was completed (1590), the Pope was submitting the city of Rome the most dramatic treatment it had ever received and was laying the outlines of its future development for over two centuries. New streets were created to connect the main churches. Egyptian obelisks, crowned with the emblems of triumphant Christianity were placed all around the squares in Rome. Loads of water fountains with brought fresh water in the city. Shortly after this glorious achievement was finally brought to fruition, the Pope died.
This story gives the book “Le fontane di Roma nelle piazze, e luoghi publici della città” with consists only out of pictures, the very much needed context of how these fountains were created and what importance it was to the city of Rome.
I continued my research in Alice with the topic “Rome” and the text “fountains”. I then found the book “Burke, Rethinking the High Renaissance” with the phrase:
“On Sixtus’s Roman architectural patronage, including the construction and improvement of streets, churches, fountains, a bridge, a hospital, city’ walls and gates, the Sistine Chapel and repairs as well as new structures in St Peter’s, see Pastor (1955 64), vol. 2, 641 43, 648 51, 654 58; and Benzi (1990).”
It clearly is the same story i mentioned before. However, this really underlines the importance of fountains in the new Rome.
It was really interesting to explore the connections of my book «Le fontane di Roma nelle piazze, e luoghi publici della città» to other ones. It really helped me to get to know it even better and to finally understand the context of what it’s trying to tell me.
At first, I wanted to use the keyword “from my exercise “Xenotheka” to find similar blogs, but I soon found out that the results are quite hard to find similarities. Then I started from the book I chose to find similar blogs. I decided to start from the same author, since it is pretty hard to find similarities while the book from Falda mostly based on pictures and drawing instead of words. And I have noticed the blog above which shared the same author with me. Although the themes of the books are totally different, the ways we started are pretty much the same, firstly with the keyword from the book, as for me, it was “orientation of the building” and for this blog it was “fountain”.
It is really interesting to see how other people searching the book with totally different ways, when both books consists basically drawing and pictures.
Connections_08
I searched for the word “Rome” to find posts that are similar to my book de gli obelischi di roma by Michele Mercati. I recognized quickly that both books are written in Italian. Also, both are written about special architecture elements in Rome. While my friend discusses the obelisk, the book Le fontane di Roma nelle piazze, e luoghi publici della città talks about the fountains, water sources and gardens in Rome. Interestingly, I found in this post something that is also explained in my book: how the Pope submitted the most dramatic treatment to Rome and in this process added the Egyptian obelisks.
#08 #21-928-767
This book is in some ways similar to the book I looked at: de gli obelischi di Roma by Michele Mercati. The is published in 1589 whereas the book discussed in this post ist a bit younger. It dates from the 17th century. Both books have quite a comprehensive and focus on one specific architectural phenomenon in Rome. Mercati was concerned with the famous Roman obelisks and their History. Giovanni Battista Falda was interested in water fountains and other water sources. What is interesting when looking at similarities and differences of the two books is that Fold’s book mainly consist of illustrations whereas Mercati’s book is written. This shows how different media have played a role in architectural publications from quite early on.