Etching by Giovanni Franceso Venturini of the Fontana dell’Aquilone in the Vatican Gardens, ca. 1675.

Featured on PDR in the essay Petrified Waters: The Artificial Grottoes of the Renaissance and Beyond

Idling alongside the waters of artificial grottoes, visitors found themselves in lush, otherworldly settings, where art and nature, pleasure and peril, and humans and nymphs could, for a time, coexist. Laura Tradii spelunks through the handmade caves of the Italian Renaissance and their reception abroad, illuminating how these curious spaces transformed across the centuries.

The Fontana dell’Aquilone in the Vatican Gardens

Artist

Date

1675


Underlying Rights

Public Domain Worldwide

Digital Rights

No Additional Rights


Image Size

1220 x 875 Higher res available?

 Download Image