Ricerc@Sapienza

Old fountains, once they have lost their original function of providing drinking water, today often represent a problem for the public administrations that often own them, but they also constitute an excellent opportunity for revitalising the areas in which they are situated. This occurs because in the past this type of structure played an important role in the definition of the urban plan, a role that now seems to have been reinstated after a period of obscurity due to attempts to force the plan to conform to the necessities of contemporaneity. Indeed, today a fountain is recognised as having the capacity to revitalise urban environments and not only historical ones. In other words, this type of structure should be regarded as one of the possible tools for recovering the quality of urban areas, which as is known, has a beneficial effect on the inhabitants. The research undertaken on the Fontana Fraterna in the town of Isernia is inspired by these considerations and has the merit, if we may say so, of having partially filled the void in information and having filtered and organised the previously known data, including information handed down in the oral tradition of the local population, providing a systematic and contemporary reading of such information. What we have put together is a research project involving several levels of investigation in which drawing has a key role, especially in the elaboration of the final study in which the critical-discretionary reading of the graphics has made it possible to achieve greater clarity in the description of the
architectural structure.