The engineer’s own account of how he lowered, moved and raised the Vatican obelisk in 1586, followed by a record of the other works he carried out for Pope Sixtus V: four more obelisks, the new straight streets across Rome, the Acqua Felice aqueduct and its fountain, and the papal palaces.
Domenico Fontana (1543–1607), a mason’s son from the Ticino, became the architect of Cardinal Felice Peretti, and when Peretti was elected Pope Sixtus V in 1585 he became the executor of one of the most concentrated building programmes ever seen in a city. In barely five years Sixtus had streets driven straight across the empty hills of Rome between the great pilgrimage churches, brought water back to the high ground with a new aqueduct, and set up ancient obelisks as markers at the ends of the new streets.
The book opens with the feat that made Fontana famous: the moving of the 25-metre Vatican obelisk from beside the old basilica to the centre of the square in front of it, in 1586, using a timber tower and some forty windlasses worked by hundreds of men and horses.Its large engraved plates of the machinery were admired by engineers for two centuries. The later chapters describe the Strada Felice, the other obelisks, the Acqua Felice and its monumental fountain, and the Lateran and Vatican palaces. A second book, published in Naples in 1604, covers Fontana’s works there.
The book, part by part
I Book I: The obelisk and the works of Sixtus V
The lowering, transport and raising of the Vatican obelisk (1586); the obelisks of Santa Maria Maggiore (1587), the Lateran (1588) and Piazza del Popolo (1589); the Strada Felice and the streets linking the basilicas; the Acqua Felice and its fountain; the papal palaces and the Vatican Library.
Rules: Straight streets between the great churches · Water for the new quarters
II Book II: Works in Naples
Published in 1604, after Fontana had left Rome for the service of the viceroys of Naples: the Royal Palace, roads and waterworks.