Fontane

Fountains were already being used by the first civilisations, who built stone tanks to capture and store water used for drinking. However, the golden age of fountains was actually at the height of the Roman Empire. The ancient Romans built a vast system of aqueducts to carry water from rivers and lakes to the cities’ fountains and cisterns. In fact, by the 3rd century A.D., Rome had eleven aqueducts to serve a population of over one million people, and this efficient service model existed in all the main cities of the Roman Empire.
Aqueducts moved water through gravity alone, along a slight downward gradient within conduits of stone, brick, or concrete. Most conduits were buried underground; in some cases they were laid at surface level, covered by stone slabs and, where valleys or lowlands intervened, the conduit was carried on bridgework.

Most aqueduct systems included sedimentation tanks, sluice gates and distribution tanks in order to regulate the supply according to need.
Aqueducts supplied water to fountains, public baths, latrines, mills and private households. Fountains and public baths became distinctive features of the Roman civilisation, as well as important social meeting places.
With the fall of the Western Roman Empire, many aqueducts fell into disuse, also due to lack of maintenance. This contributed to the decrease in city populations. For example, Rome, which had one million inhabitants in the Imperial Age, had only 30,000 in the Middle Ages.