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 142 fountains in Venice, only 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

History

A fountain, known locally as “fontana”, is the structure that dispenses public potable water in the City of Venice. An aqueduct system was completed from mainland in the late 1800's, which enabled a fountain system to emerge and to release a stream of safely potable water. These fountains usually locate in a “campo” or a street where they can be seen easily by the public. Some typical fountains were individually made with impressive design and some were mass-produced.

Types of Fountains

Churches were once responsible for locking and unlocking the well at certain times of the day. This was to prevent just anyone from retrieving water from the well at any given time. In order to retrieve water from the well, Venetians typically used ropes to haul buckets of water over the lip of the wellhead. These ropes left grooves in the material of the wellhead as seen below. Some private wellheads have a pulley system installed to retrieve water without damaging the wellhead.

• 
  The mark resulted from retrieving water with a rope

Structure

A typical wellhead has a platform, the main body and lid. Some platforms are made up of up to three steps.

Shape

A typical wellhead has an overall cylindrical or square shape. Often the shape of the base and the shape of the rim are different. The shape of the base is consistently circular while the shape of the rim varies between circular, square, hexagonal and octagonal.

Material

A Wellhead is constructed with either brick, Istria stone, Red Verona or White Verona. A brick wellhead however will deteriorate over time and as a result the typical wellhead of today is made of Istria Stone, Red Verona or White Verona with only a few exceptions. See Wellheads page. Istria stone is a type of limestone that has a gray-green or yellowish color. Lengthy exposure to the atmosphere causes the stone to obtain a whitish appearance through a process called “whitewashing.” Unfortunately, this also makes Istria stone a prime candidate for exfoliation. Verona marble is a sedimentary rock composed of organic limestone and fossils. It has either a reddish or whitish color depending on the carbon compounds it contains.

• 
  A wellhead made of Istrian Stone
• 
  A wellhead made of Red Verona Stone
• 
  A wellhead made of White Verona Stone

Lid

The Lid of a wellhead is typically circular in shape and either flat or convex in shape. The material of the lid is typically metal, wood or concrete with a few exceptions.

• 
  A wellhead that has a metal lid
• 
  A wellhead that has a concrete lid
• 
  A wellhead in Chioggia that has a statue as the lid

Serving Nature

In the past, these wellheads served as access points to fresh water for not only the human population of Venice, but the animals as well. Small, bowl-shaped indentations were made in the platforms of some wellheads. These indentations served as a source of fresh drinking water and as baths for the local wild life.

See also

• Wellheads
• Wellhead Maintenance
• Well
• Wells

Bibliography

NULL

External Links

• English Wikipedia article on a typical wellhead