Fountain

This page contains information about a typical Venetian fountain. For a list of fountains, see Fountains

A fountain, fontana, is a public drinking water system in Venice. It serves potable water to the public and locates all over the city. The majority of fountains run continuously whereas only a few of them have a push button to operate. Among the 222 fountains in Venice, only around half of them are functional. The Venetian Fountain serves not only a practical purpose, but also as a unique aspect of Venetian vernacular art. see Public art preservation.

A Venetian fountain

History

Prior to the construction of the Venetian aqueduct in the 1880s, wells were the primary source of drinking water. When the aqueduct was constructed it was connected to several newly created fountains as well as some spigots on pre-existing wellheads. Fountains in Venice are typically located in a “campo” or a street where they can be seen easily by the public. There are many different kinds of fountains, some typical fountains were made individually with impressive design and some were mass-produced. They have slowly fallen out of use as water lines were added to households across Venice. Nowadays, the water from the working fountains is clean and potable, but mostly goes unused.

Types of Fountains

In the Venetian Lagoon, there are multiple types of fountain according to their design and shape. These types include Delfini, Puglia, Alto, Ott. Basso, San Marco, Cylindro, Pozzo, Tubo, and Neri. Some of them have solid rectangular shape with some fancy designed lid at the top (i.e. Neri), while some of them are just a simple tube with a spout (i.e. Tubo). Additionally, these fountains have different faucet design with mostly lion heads.

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  Types of Fountain

Material

The majority of the fountains in the Venetian Lagoon are metal and only a few of them are stone. Because of this, many fountains suffer from natural damage such as algae and especially rust. The location of Venice exacerbates this problem even more. The vast majority of the metal fountains are cast iron. These metal fountains are painted to cover the metal surface to avoid rust, but the paints wear out from times to times leaving the majority of metal fountains in the Lagoon susceptible to rust. Some stone fountains are made out of Istria stone and marble and typically built in a later period.

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  Stone fountain with algae
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  Metal fountain with rust and algae

See also

• Fountains