Aqueducts: The Remedy to Rome's Water Problems

Aqueducts: The Remedy to Rome's Water Problems Rome’s very first elevated aqueduct, Aqua Anio Vetus, was built in 273 BC; prior to that, people residing at higher elevations had to depend on natural springs for their water. When aqueducts or springs weren’t available, people living at greater elevations turned to water removed from underground or rainwater, which was made possible by wells and cisterns. In the very early sixteenth century, the city began to make use of the water that ran underground through Acqua Vergine to provide drinking water to Pincian Hill. Throughout the time of its initial construction, pozzi (or manholes) were situated at set intervals along the aqueduct’s channel. During the roughly 9 years he owned the property, from 1543 to 1552, Cardinal Marcello Crescenzi used these manholes to take water from the channel in buckets, though they were originally established for the purpose of maintaining and maintaining the aqueduct. It seems that, the rainwater cistern on his property wasn’t sufficient to fulfill his needs. Thankfully, the aqueduct sat just below his property, and he had a shaft opened to give him access.

From Where Did Water Fountains Emerge?

From Where Did Water Fountains Emerge? Water Fountains Emerge? 16434154239.jpg

Hundreds of ancient Greek records were translated into Latin under the auspices of the scholarly Pope Nicholas V, who led the Roman Catholic Church from 1397 to 1455. Embellishing Rome and making it the worthy capital of the Christian world was at the center of his ambitions. In 1453 the Pope commissioned the rebuilding of the Aqua Vergine, an ancient Roman aqueduct which had carried fresh drinking water into the city from eight miles away. Building a mostra, an imposing celebratory fountain built by ancient Romans to memorialize the entry point of an aqueduct, was a tradition revived by Nicholas V. The architect Leon Battista Alberti was directed by the Pope to construct a wall fountain where we now find the Trevi Fountain. The water which eventually supplied the Trevi Fountain as well as the renown baroque fountains in the Piazza del Popolo and Piazza Navona flowed from the modified aqueduct which he had renovated.