Fountain Girls

King Henry IV of France made an important contribution to French fountains by inviting an Italian hydraulic engineer, Tomasso Francini, who had worked on the fountains of the villa at Pratalino, to make fountains in France. Francini became a French citizen in 1600, built the Medici Fountain, and during the rule of the young King Louis XIII, he was raised to the position of Intendant général des Eaux et Fontaines of the KIng, a position which was hereditary. His descendants became the royal fountain designers for Louis XIII and for Louis XIV at Versailles.
In 1630 another Medici, Marie de Medici, the widow of Henry IV, built her own monumental fountain in Paris, the Medici Fountain, in the garden of the Palais du Luxembourg. That fountain still exists today, with a long basin of water and statues added in 1866.