Sunday 2 March 2014

L'araignée du bassin de Latone

Gorgeous Latona fountain in the palace gardens is being restored by Versailles' hydraulic engineers to its XVIIth century working order. I had shown it to you here, with links to other posts with mythological explanations and a video. What you see in the second photo is a part of the 'spider', a three century old network of pipes that distributes the water to the 74 spouts of the fountain... Incidentally, VDP called the basin Leto in previous posts but the official name seems to be Latona.

Je vous avais montré la belle fontaine ici, avec des liens vers ses fondements mythologiques et une vidéo. Ce que vous voyez dans la seconde photo, c'est une partie de "l'araignée", un réseau de canalisations tricentenaire qui alimente les 74 jets d'eau de la fontaine, objet de toutes les attentions des fontainiers et de la restauration actuellement en cours !

20 comments:

Revrunner said...

THAT would be a fascinating engineering project!

Sunnybrook Farm said...

Very interesting, it will be good to see the finished project!

Sylvia K said...

A fascinating project indeed! I look forward to seeing the finished project, too!!

Lowell said...

That's incredible: 3-century old pipes? Can't imagine something like that lasting for that long. It will be fun to see the end game, and you will show us the fountain, oui?

Hope you're having a good weekend.

William Kendall said...

It looks like a lot of work, but well worth it! I look forward to the final product.

Bob Crowe said...

300 and something years seems like an appropriate time for a restoration. I'm sure it was an engineering marvel in its day.

Randy said...

Looks like a big fountain.

Dina said...

The inside story is so interesting!

Stuart said...

I find it interesting that 300 years ago the engineers were able to figure out the hydraulics to construct this wonderful fountain.

Anonymous said...

Always interesting to see workings which are normally buried out of sight!

Unknown said...

The underwater paraphernalia of most fountains always amazes me.

Michelle said...

Wow. I hope to see the finished product in the future.

La Contessa said...

Will they TOSS the old and input NEW pipes??I hope not but fear that to be the case……...

cieldequimper said...

@ la Contessa: no, they won't. The whole point is to keep them.

Halcyon said...

Very interesting to see this renovation closeup. I'm glad they take care of things at the palace. Although I still haven't seen the fountain shows!

RedPat said...

I love a nice fountain and look forward to your pics of the finished project!

EG CameraGirl said...

It'll be wonderful when the repairs are done!

Loree said...

What amazing pipe-work.

VP said...

I like maintenance works like these: they show how thing really works!

Wayne said...

Oh goodie, pipes and wires :-) Looks pretty intricate.