Grand Designs: Fountains: The Magnificent Age of the Baroque

In the lecture on GRAND DESIGNS: FOUNTAINS, we will see how Pope Urban VIII commissioned Bernini’s Triton fountain as a symbol of self-glorification and Pope Innocent X commissioned his Fountain of the Four Rivers. There were complex iconographic pieces to make public statements.

In this series on the age of Baroque, we explore how Martin Luther published his 95 theses in 1517. This was not only a challenge to the perceived corruption of the Catholic Church, it was an act which prompted the transformation of the religious, socio-political, and artistic landscape of Europe. One of the most dynamic styles to emerge in the wake of the Counter-Reformation, the Baroque, lasted a century and manifested differently in Italy, Spain, and France, where it produced the most extraordinary artists and architects including Caravaggio, Bernini, Velasquez, Poussin, and Borromini.