PHOTOGRAPHY & WATERCOLORS
Travel: Italy Galleries
RIOMAGGIORE, CINQUE TERRE, LA SPEZIA, ITALY
The Cinque Terre are five coastal villages in the province of La Spezi ...
Updated: Dec 09, 2007 11:43am PST
MANAROLA, CINQUE TERRE, LA SPEZIA, ITALY
The Cinque Terre are five coastal villages in the province of La Spezi ...
Updated: Dec 09, 2007 11:51am PST
CORNIGLIA, CINQUE TERRE, LA SPEZIA, ITALY
The Cinque Terre are five coastal villages in the province of La Spezi ...
Updated: Dec 09, 2007 11:57am PST
VERNAZZA, CINQUE TERRE, LA SPEZIA, ITALY
The Cinque Terre are five coastal villages in the province of La Spezi ...
Updated: Dec 09, 2007 12:03pm PST
MONTEROSSO AL MARE, CINQUE TERRE, LA SPEZIA, ITALY
The Cinque Terre are five coastal villages in the province of La Spezi ...
Updated: Dec 09, 2007 12:24pm PST
LIVORNO, TUSCANY AND SPEZIA, ITALY
La Spezia, is at the head of La Spezia Gulf. It is one a major Italian ...
Updated: Dec 09, 2007 12:30pm PST
ISLE OF CAPRI, NAPLES AND SORRENTO
The City of Naples is in southern Italy. It is the capital of the Camp ...
Updated: Jan 15, 2008 7:24am PST
THE PANTHEON AND PIAZZA DELLA ROTONDA
The Roman Pantheon, meaning "Temple of all the Gods" is a building in ...
Updated: May 14, 2008 9:24am PST
THE FABRIC ON AND ALONG THE STREETS OF ROME
These photos are the structures, landscapes and street textures as I w ...
Updated: Jan 08, 2010 4:49pm PST
![THE TREVI FOUNTAIN, ROME, ITALY : The Trevi Fountain or in Italian, Fontana di Trevi is the largest (standing 25.9 meters or 85 feet high and 19.8 meters or 65 feet wide) and most ambitious of the Baroque fountains of Rome. It is located in the rione of Trevi.
The fountain is at the juncture of three roads (tre vie)marks the terminal point of the "modern" Acqua Vergine, the revivified Aqua Virgo, one of the ancient aqueducts that supplied water to ancient Rome. In 19 BC, supposedly with the help of a virgin, Roman technicians located a source of pure water some 13 km (8 miles) from the city. (This scene is presented on the present fountain's facade). However, the eventual indirect route of the aqueduct made its length some 22 km (14 miles). This Aqua Virgo led the water into the Baths of Agrippa. It served Rome for more than four hundred years.[4] The "coup de grace" for the urban life of late classical Rome came when the Goth besiegers in 537/38 broke the aqueducts. Medieval Romans were reduced to drawing water from polluted wells and the Tiber River, which was also used as a sewer.
Information shown above and on photos of Trevi Fountain were taken from Wikipedia.](http://andresalvador.smugmug.com/Travel-Italy/THE-TREVI-FOUNTAIN-ROME-ITALY/i-LqWXSnw/0/Ti/_DSC5523-Trevi-Rome-web-Ti.jpg "THE TREVI FOUNTAIN, ROME, ITALY : The Trevi Fountain or in Italian, Fontana di Trevi is the largest (standing 25.9 meters or 85 feet high and 19.8 meters or 65 feet wide) and most ambitious of the Baroque fountains of Rome. It is located in the rione of Trevi.
The fountain is at the juncture of three roads (tre vie)marks the terminal point of the \"modern\" Acqua Vergine, the revivified Aqua Virgo, one of the ancient aqueducts that supplied water to ancient Rome. In 19 BC, supposedly with the help of a virgin, Roman technicians located a source of pure water some 13 km (8 miles) from the city. (This scene is presented on the present fountain's facade). However, the eventual indirect route of the aqueduct made its length some 22 km (14 miles). This Aqua Virgo led the water into the Baths of Agrippa. It served Rome for more than four hundred years.[4] The \"coup de grace\" for the urban life of late classical Rome came when the Goth besiegers in 537/38 broke the aqueducts. Medieval Romans were reduced to drawing water from polluted wells and the Tiber River, which was also used as a sewer.
Information shown above and on photos of Trevi Fountain were taken from Wikipedia.")
THE TREVI FOUNTAIN, ROME, ITALY
The Trevi Fountain or in Italian, Fontana di Trevi is the largest (sta ...
Updated: May 16, 2008 9:16am PST
![ST. PETER'S SQUARE, ROME, ITALY : To the east of the basilica is the Piazza di San Pietro, (St. Peter's Square). The present arrangement, constructed between 1656 and 1667, is the Baroque inspiration of Bernini who inherited a location already occupied by an Egyptian obelisk of the 13th century BC, which was centrally placed, (with some contrivance) to Maderno's facade. The obelisk, at 25.5 metre (83.6 ft) and a total height, including base and the cross on top, of 40 metres (131 ft), is the second largest standing obelisk, and the only one to remain standing since it removal from Egypt and re-erection at the Circus of Nero, where it had stood since AD 37. Its removal to its present location by order of Pope Sixtus V and engineered by Domenico Fontana on September 28, 1586, was an operation fraught with difficulties and nearly ending in disaster when the ropes holding the obelisk began to smoke from the friction. Fortunately this problem was noticed by a sailor, and for his swift intervention, his village was granted the privilege of providing the palms that are used at the basilica each Palm Sunday.
Two fountains form the axis of the piazza.The other object in the old square with which Bernini had to contend was a large fountain designed by Maderno in 1613 and set to one side of the obelisk, making a line parallel with the facade. Bernini's plan uses this horizontal axis as a major feature of his unique, spacially dynamic and highly symbolic design. The most obvious solutions were either a rectangular piazza of vast proportions so that the obelisk stood centrally and the fountain (and a matching companion) could be included, or a trapezoid piazza which fanned out from the facade of the basilica like that in front of the Palazzo Publicco in Siena. The problems of the square plan are that the necessary width to include the fountain would entail the demolition of numerous buildings, including some of the Vatican, and would minimise the effect of the facade. The trapezoid plan, on the other hand, would maximise the apparent width of the facade, which was already perceived as a fault of the design.
Bernini's ingenious solution was to create a piazza in two sections. That part which is nearest the basilica is trapezoid, but rather than fanning out from the facade, it narrows. This gives the effect of countering the visual perspective. It means that from the second part of the piazza, the building looks nearer than it is, the breadth of the facade is minimised and its height appears greater in proportion to its width. The second section of the piazza is a huge elliptical circus which gently slopes downwards to the obelisk at its centre. The two distinct areas are framed by a colonnade formed by doubled pairs of columns supporting an entabulature of the simple Tuscan Order.
The part of the colonnade that is around the ellipse does not entirely encircle it, but reaches out in two arcs, symbolic of the arms of "the Roman Catholic Church reaching out to welcome its communicants".[21] The obelisk and Maderno's fountain make the widest axis of the elipse. Bernini balanced the scheme with another fountain in 1675. The approach to the square used to be through a jumble of old buildings, which added an element of surprise to the vista that opened up upon passing through the colonnade. Nowadays a long wide street, the Via della Conciliazione, built by Mussolini after the conclusion of the Lateran Treaties, leads from the River Tiber to the piazza and gives distant views of St. Peter's as the visitor approaches.
Bernini's transformation of the site is entirely Baroque in concept. Where Bramante and Michelangelo conceived a building that stood in "self-sufficient isolation", Bernini made the whole complex "expansively relate to its environment". Banister Fletcher says "No other city has afforded such a wide-swept approach to its cathedral church, no other architect could have conceived a design of greater nobility...(it is) the greatest of all atriums before the greatest of all churches of Christendom."
Information taken from Wikipedia](http://andresalvador.smugmug.com/Travel-Italy/ST-PETERS-SQUARE-ROME-ITALY/i-qN7Xrjj/0/Ti/DSC5649-St-Peters-Basilica-2BWweb-Ti.jpg "ST. PETER'S SQUARE, ROME, ITALY : To the east of the basilica is the Piazza di San Pietro, (St. Peter's Square). The present arrangement, constructed between 1656 and 1667, is the Baroque inspiration of Bernini who inherited a location already occupied by an Egyptian obelisk of the 13th century BC, which was centrally placed, (with some contrivance) to Maderno's facade. The obelisk, at 25.5 metre (83.6 ft) and a total height, including base and the cross on top, of 40 metres (131 ft), is the second largest standing obelisk, and the only one to remain standing since it removal from Egypt and re-erection at the Circus of Nero, where it had stood since AD 37. Its removal to its present location by order of Pope Sixtus V and engineered by Domenico Fontana on September 28, 1586, was an operation fraught with difficulties and nearly ending in disaster when the ropes holding the obelisk began to smoke from the friction. Fortunately this problem was noticed by a sailor, and for his swift intervention, his village was granted the privilege of providing the palms that are used at the basilica each Palm Sunday.
Two fountains form the axis of the piazza.The other object in the old square with which Bernini had to contend was a large fountain designed by Maderno in 1613 and set to one side of the obelisk, making a line parallel with the facade. Bernini's plan uses this horizontal axis as a major feature of his unique, spacially dynamic and highly symbolic design. The most obvious solutions were either a rectangular piazza of vast proportions so that the obelisk stood centrally and the fountain (and a matching companion) could be included, or a trapezoid piazza which fanned out from the facade of the basilica like that in front of the Palazzo Publicco in Siena. The problems of the square plan are that the necessary width to include the fountain would entail the demolition of numerous buildings, including some of the Vatican, and would minimise the effect of the facade. The trapezoid plan, on the other hand, would maximise the apparent width of the facade, which was already perceived as a fault of the design.
Bernini's ingenious solution was to create a piazza in two sections. That part which is nearest the basilica is trapezoid, but rather than fanning out from the facade, it narrows. This gives the effect of countering the visual perspective. It means that from the second part of the piazza, the building looks nearer than it is, the breadth of the facade is minimised and its height appears greater in proportion to its width. The second section of the piazza is a huge elliptical circus which gently slopes downwards to the obelisk at its centre. The two distinct areas are framed by a colonnade formed by doubled pairs of columns supporting an entabulature of the simple Tuscan Order.
The part of the colonnade that is around the ellipse does not entirely encircle it, but reaches out in two arcs, symbolic of the arms of \"the Roman Catholic Church reaching out to welcome its communicants\".[21] The obelisk and Maderno's fountain make the widest axis of the elipse. Bernini balanced the scheme with another fountain in 1675. The approach to the square used to be through a jumble of old buildings, which added an element of surprise to the vista that opened up upon passing through the colonnade. Nowadays a long wide street, the Via della Conciliazione, built by Mussolini after the conclusion of the Lateran Treaties, leads from the River Tiber to the piazza and gives distant views of St. Peter's as the visitor approaches.
Bernini's transformation of the site is entirely Baroque in concept. Where Bramante and Michelangelo conceived a building that stood in \"self-sufficient isolation\", Bernini made the whole complex \"expansively relate to its environment\". Banister Fletcher says \"No other city has afforded such a wide-swept approach to its cathedral church, no other architect could have conceived a design of greater nobility...(it is) the greatest of all atriums before the greatest of all churches of Christendom.\"
Information taken from Wikipedia")
ST. PETER'S SQUARE, ROME, ITALY
To the east of the basilica is the Piazza di San Pietro, (St. Peter's ...
Updated: Jun 05, 2008 4:07pm PST
These are snapshots of some of the pretty women that caught my attenti ...
Updated: Jun 06, 2008 8:59am PST
![SPANISH STEPS AND PIAZZA SPAGNA : The Spanish Steps (Italian: Scalinata della Trinità dei Monti) are a set of steps in Rome, Italy, climbing a steep slope between the Piazza di Spagna at the base and Piazza Trinità dei Monti, dominated by Trinità dei Monti, the church that was under the patronage of the Bourbon kings of France, above. The Scalinata is "without a doubt the longest and widest staircase in all Europe." [1]
The monumental stairway of 138 steps was built with French diplomat Étienne Gueffier’s bequeathed funds of 20,000 scudi, in 1723–1725, linking the Bourbon Spanish Embassy to the Holy See, today still located in Palazzo Monaldeschi in the piazza below, with the Trinità dei Monti above.
In the Piazza at the base is the Early Baroque fountain called La Fontana della Barcaccia ("Fountain of the Old Boat"), built in 1627-29 and often credited to Pietro Bernini, father of a more famous son, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, who is recently said to have collaborated on the decoration. The elder Bernini had been the pope's architect for the Acqua Vergine, since 1623. According to an unlikely legend, Pope Urban VIII had the fountain installed after he had been impressed by a boat brought here by a flood of the Tiber river.
In the piazza, at the corner on the right as one begins to climb the steps, is the house where English poet John Keats lived and died in 1821; it is now a museum dedicated to his memory, full of memorabilia of the English Romantic generation. On the same right side stands the 15th century former cardinal Lorenzo Cybo de Mari's palace, now Ferrari di Valbona, a building altered in 1936 to designs by Marcello Piacentini, the main city planner during Fascism, with modern terraces perfectly in harmony with the surrounding baroque context.
Information taken from Wikipedia.](http://andresalvador.smugmug.com/Travel-Italy/SPANISH-STEPS-AND-PIAZZA/i-znsCcw5/0/Ti/_DSC5490-Rome-web-Ti.jpg "SPANISH STEPS AND PIAZZA SPAGNA : The Spanish Steps (Italian: Scalinata della Trinità dei Monti) are a set of steps in Rome, Italy, climbing a steep slope between the Piazza di Spagna at the base and Piazza Trinità dei Monti, dominated by Trinità dei Monti, the church that was under the patronage of the Bourbon kings of France, above. The Scalinata is \"without a doubt the longest and widest staircase in all Europe.\" [1]
The monumental stairway of 138 steps was built with French diplomat Étienne Gueffier’s bequeathed funds of 20,000 scudi, in 1723–1725, linking the Bourbon Spanish Embassy to the Holy See, today still located in Palazzo Monaldeschi in the piazza below, with the Trinità dei Monti above.
In the Piazza at the base is the Early Baroque fountain called La Fontana della Barcaccia (\"Fountain of the Old Boat\"), built in 1627-29 and often credited to Pietro Bernini, father of a more famous son, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, who is recently said to have collaborated on the decoration. The elder Bernini had been the pope's architect for the Acqua Vergine, since 1623. According to an unlikely legend, Pope Urban VIII had the fountain installed after he had been impressed by a boat brought here by a flood of the Tiber river.
In the piazza, at the corner on the right as one begins to climb the steps, is the house where English poet John Keats lived and died in 1821; it is now a museum dedicated to his memory, full of memorabilia of the English Romantic generation. On the same right side stands the 15th century former cardinal Lorenzo Cybo de Mari's palace, now Ferrari di Valbona, a building altered in 1936 to designs by Marcello Piacentini, the main city planner during Fascism, with modern terraces perfectly in harmony with the surrounding baroque context.
Information taken from Wikipedia.")
SPANISH STEPS AND PIAZZA SPAGNA
The Spanish Steps (Italian: Scalinata della Trinità dei Monti) are a s ...
Updated: Jun 06, 2008 12:06pm PST
CHURCH AT THE CORNER OF VINCENZO LUCHESI & VIA SCUDERIE, ROME, ITALY
This is a lovely little church but I cannot remember its name. It sits ...
Updated: Jun 07, 2008 10:48am PST
Piazza Navona is a square in Rome, Italy. The piazza follows the plan ...
Updated: Jun 07, 2008 11:51am PST
