Fontaine de Medicis

by John Rivera

Title

Fontaine de Medicis

Artist

John Rivera

Medium

Photograph - Photography

Description

The Medici Fountain (fr: La fontaine Médicis) is a monumental fountain in the Jardin du Luxembourg in the 6th arrondissement in Paris. It was built in about 1630 by Marie de' Medici, the widow of King Henry IV of France and regent of King Louis XIII of France. It was moved to its present location and extensively rebuilt in 1864-66.
Marie de' Medici, as widow of Henry IV and mother and regent of King Louis XIII of France, began construction of her own palace, which she called the Palais des Medicis, between 1623 and 1630, on the left bank of Paris. The new palace was modeled after the Palazzo Pitti in her native Florence, and the gardens around the palace were modeled after those of the Boboli Gardens in Florence. The Palace was the work of architect Salomon de Brosse, but the fountain and grotto was most probably the work of Tommaso Francini, the Intendant General of Waters and Fountains of the King.[2] Francini, who emigrated to France at the invitation of Henry IV in 1598 and was naturalized in 1600, had built grottos and fountains in the Italian style for the marquis de Gondi and for the royal chateau of Henry IV at Saint-Germain-en-Laye.
The first difficulty of construction was the lack of water in the Left Bank of Paris. Unlike the Right Bank, where the water table was near the surface, and there were many wells and two acqueducts which served the city, the water table on the Left Bank was deep underground and all water had to be carried from the Seine. As a result, the city had expanded far from the Right Bank of the Seine, but had hardly grown at all on the Left Bank. This problem was finally solved by the construction of the aqueduct of Arcueil, between 1613-1623.[3]

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June 5th, 2015

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