FONTANA, Domenico

Roman Baroque fountains stand out as a novel reworking of a venerable civic tradition, especially when compared with fountains produced elsewhere in Italy. The major factor contributing to the new prominence of fountain design in Rome was a practical one: the restoration of the city’s extensive network of ancient aqueducts. From the reign of Pope Nicholas V (1447-1455) onwards, most pontiffs paid attention to the city’s water supply, both out of necessity and in emulation of their imperial predecessors. Some twenty fountains were erected between the reigns of Gregory XIII (1572-1585) and Clement VIII (1592-1602)

The Acqua Felice was built for Sixtus V by the brothers Giovanni and Domenico Fontana. Its design was adapted from Roman triumphal arches, complete with papal arms and a laudatory Latin inscription. Antique columns of coloured marble divide the main body into three fields, beneath which stands basins flanked by Egyptian and medieval stone lions. Although the quality of the sculpture is mediocre, its iconographic programme is noteworthy, for instead of mythological themes, biblical personages are portrayed. The central figure is a rather ungainly Moses by Leonardo Sormani (d. 1589) and Prospero Antichi (d. 1592); the lateral bays contain reliefs showing Aaron leading the Israelites to water and Joshua leading them across the Jordan with dry feet, carved by a group of minor sculptor.

Roman Baroque fountains stand out as a novel reworking of a venerable civic tradition, especially when compared with fountains produced elsewhere in Italy. The major factor contributing to the new prominence of fountain design in Rome was a practical one: the restoration of the city’s extensive network of ancient aqueducts. From the reign of Pope Nicholas V (1447-1455) onwards, most pontiffs paid attention to the city’s water supply, both out of necessity and in emulation of their imperial predecessors. Some twenty fountains were erected between the reigns of Gregory XIII (1572-1585) and Clement VIII (1592-1602)

The Acqua Felice was built for Sixtus V by the brothers Giovanni and Domenico Fontana. Its design was adapted from Roman triumphal arches, complete with papal arms and a laudatory Latin inscription. Antique columns of coloured marble divide the main body into three fields, beneath which stands basins flanked by Egyptian and medieval stone lions. Although the quality of the sculpture is mediocre, its iconographic programme is noteworthy, for instead of mythological themes, biblical personages are portrayed. The central figure is a rather ungainly Moses by Leonardo Sormani (d. 1589) and Prospero Antichi (d. 1592); the lateral bays contain reliefs showing Aaron leading the Israelites to water and Joshua leading them across the Jordan with dry feet, carved by a group of minor sculptor.

Roman Baroque fountains stand out as a novel reworking of a venerable civic tradition, especially when compared with fountains produced elsewhere in Italy. The major factor contributing to the new prominence of fountain design in Rome was a practical one: the restoration of the city’s extensive network of ancient aqueducts. From the reign of Pope Nicholas V (1447-1455) onwards, most pontiffs paid attention to the city’s water supply, both out of necessity and in emulation of their imperial predecessors. Some twenty fountains were erected between the reigns of Gregory XIII (1572-1585) and Clement VIII (1592-1602)

The Acqua Felice was built for Sixtus V by the brothers Giovanni and Domenico Fontana. Its design was adapted from Roman triumphal arches, complete with papal arms and a laudatory Latin inscription. Antique columns of coloured marble divide the main body into three fields, beneath which stands basins flanked by Egyptian and medieval stone lions. Although the quality of the sculpture is mediocre, its iconographic programme is noteworthy, for instead of mythological themes, biblical personages are portrayed. The central figure is a rather ungainly Moses by Leonardo Sormani (d. 1589) and Prospero Antichi (d. 1592); the lateral bays contain reliefs showing Aaron leading the Israelites to water and Joshua leading them across the Jordan with dry feet, carved by a group of minor sculptor.

The picture shows folio 53 of Domenico Fontana’s book “Della trasportazione dell’obelisco vaticano et delle fabriche di nostro signore papa Sisto V,” published in Rome in 1590. The page shows installing of the manger of Christ in the Cappella Sistina, Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome.

In addition to moving the Augustan obelisk, Domenico Fontana also masterminded another major engineering feat to enhance the prestige of the Sistine Chapel in Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. The reliquary shrine of the crib of Christ from Bethlehem was extracted from the rock of the crypt of Santa Maria Maggiore, where it had been the site of pilgrimage throughout the Middle Ages. Encased in a wooden frame, it was moved to Pope Sixtus V’s new chapel, where it was lowered into a new subterranean site. Thus Sixtus essentially commandeered one of the major relics of the city for his own use and was later to have the honour of being buried adjacent to its miraculous powers.

The Romans had plundered several Egyptian obelisks and set them up at key points in Rome, where they remained all through the Middle Ages. The most famous was that imported by Nero and erected in what had been his circus, to the south of St Peter’s. In 1586 Pope Sixtus V ordered Domenico Fontana to move it to its present location in front of the basilica. It was an outstanding feat of engineering, watched by thousands and recorded in a sumptuous publication by the architect.

This engraving from Fontana’s publication shows the Vatican obelisk standing in its original location next to the Sacristy of St Peter’s with demonstrations of how it was to be moved.

The Lateran Palace is an ancient palace of the Roman Empire and later the main Papal residence. Adjacent to the Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano, the cathedral church of Rome, Italy, the Lateran Palace is now occupied by the Museo Storico Vaticano which illustrates the history of the Papal States.

In 1586 Pope Sixtus V destroyed what remained of the ancient palace of the Lateran and erected the present much smaller edifice in its place. The architect he employed, immediately upon his election, was Domenico Fontana, who was engaged in alterations to the basilica at the same time. Fontana’s strong restrained style, influenced by Giacomo Vignola and modelled upon Palazzo Farnese for its regular and harmonious if somewhat bland major fa�ade, and Fontana’s sound engineering basis and power of co-ordinating a complicated architectural program on a tightly constrained site, which Sixtus urged forward at top speed, are remarkable. The palace was completed in 1589.

The benediction loggia at the Lateran Palace was constructed on the order of Pope Boniface VIII (1294-1303). It was used by the pope to bless the faithful.

The splendid tombs in the Cappella Sistina fill the whole width of the lateral walls to the full height of the piers, and form the principal decoration of the chapel. In each the main register is punctuated by four huge coloured marble columns, and has an arched niche in the centre and two rectangular spaces at the sides; above it is a deep cornice supporting an attic punctuated by four herms. The rectangular spaces in the main register and the three spaces in the attic were filled with narrative reliefs. In this way it was possible to enhance the commemorative character of the whole tomb, and structurally, the use of a uniform sytem of relief emphasized the flat plane of the chapel wall.

The reliefs on the tomb of Pius V illustrate historical events, while those on the Sixtus V tomb are allegorical. Of the two portrait statues in the centre one, the Pius V by Leonardo Sormani, is timid and constrained, the other, the Sixtus V by Giovanni Antonio Paracca (called Il Vasoldo), is less conventional.

Although the reliefs are executed mainly by Flemish artists, they are late sixteenth-century revivals of Lombard narrative reliefs like those which had been carved for the Certosa at Pavia 90 years before.

The splendid tombs in the Cappella Sistina fill the whole width of the lateral walls to the full height of the piers, and form the principal decoration of the chapel. In each the main register is punctuated by four huge coloured marble columns, and has an arched niche in the centre and two rectangular spaces at the sides; above it is a deep cornice supporting an attic punctuated by four herms. The rectangular spaces in the main register and the three spaces in the attic were filled with narrative reliefs. In this way it was possible to enhance the commemorative character of the whole tomb, and structurally, the use of a uniform sytem of relief emphasized the flat plane of the chapel wall.

The reliefs on the tomb of Pius V illustrate historical events, while those on the Sixtus V tomb are allegorical. Of the two portrait statues in the centre one, the Pius V by Leonardo Sormani, is timid and constrained, the other, the Sixtus V by Giovanni Antonio Paracca (called Il Vasoldo), is less conventional.

Although the reliefs are executed mainly by Flemish artists, they are late sixteenth-century revivals of Lombard narrative reliefs like those which had been carved for the Certosa at Pavia 90 years before.

The splendid tombs in the Cappella Sistina fill the whole width of the lateral walls to the full height of the piers, and form the principal decoration of the chapel. In each the main register is punctuated by four huge coloured marble columns, and has an arched niche in the centre and two rectangular spaces at the sides; above it is a deep cornice supporting an attic punctuated by four herms. The rectangular spaces in the main register and the three spaces in the attic were filled with narrative reliefs. In this way it was possible to enhance the commemorative character of the whole tomb, and structurally, the use of a uniform sytem of relief emphasized the flat plane of the chapel wall.

The reliefs on the tomb of Pius V illustrate historical events, while those on the Sixtus V tomb are allegorical. Of the two portrait statues in the centre one, the Pius V by Leonardo Sormani, is timid and constrained, the other, the Sixtus V by Giovanni Antonio Paracca (called Il Vasoldo), is less conventional.

Although the reliefs are executed mainly by Flemish artists, they are late sixteenth-century revivals of Lombard narrative reliefs like those which had been carved for the Certosa at Pavia 90 years before.

The picture shows folio 35r of Domenico Fontana’s book “Della trasportazione dell’obelisco vaticano et delle fabriche di nostro signore papa Sisto V,” published in Rome in 1590. The page shows the obelisk of Augustus newly moved to the piazza in front of St. Peter’s. 800 men, 140 horses, and 40 winches were involved in moving and erecting it, accompanied by the ringing of bells and music by Palestrina. Moving the obelisk was such an extraordinary accomplishment that Sixtus made Fontana a Knight of the Golden Spur and gave him the status of a Roman patrician.

Pope Sixtus V centred most of his urban interventions in Rome on the old basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore where he constructed a large chapel with monuments to himself and his early patron, Pope Pius V. It was not the quality of workmanship but the scale of the tombs, the sumptuousness of the coloured marbles and the profusion of reliefs and statuary which foreshadowed the major characteristics of Baroque art.

The Sistine Chapel is on the right side of the high altar in Santa Maria Maggiore, facing the Pauline Chapel on the other side of the altar. It was named for Pope Sixtus V (1585-1590), whose decision it was to build it, awarding the commission to Domenico Fontana. In its construction were used marble and other stones taken in part from ancient Roman monuments and in part recovered from the old Lateran Palace, at the time in ruins.

The chapel is on a Greek cross plan, faced with marble and topped by a dome decorated with Mannerist paintings by a group of artists, directed by the best known of them, Cesare Nebbia (c. 1536-1614). In the centre of the Sistine Chapel, on the altar four angels hold an elegant ciborium in the form of a tempietto, a distinguished example of the goldsmith’s art designed by Giovan Battista Ricci (1537-1627), which repeats the model of the chapel itself.

In the walls on either side of the ciborium are funerary monuments to Sixtus V and Pius V (1566-72), his predecessor who had managed to stop the Turkish advance on 7 October 1571 with the victory of Lepanto, and for this feat considered a great and valiant de- fender of the faith. In honour of the two popes, who belonged to the Dominican and Franciscan orders respectively, in niches to the sides of the two monuments are on one side statues of St Dominic and St Peter Martyr, and on the other St Francis of Assisi and St Anthony of Padua.

Sixtus V himself inaugurated his monument on 30 July 1589, and a year later, at his death, was buried in the chapel crypt.