Rome’s Ingenious Water Delivery Solutions

Aqua Anio Vetus, the first raised aqueduct assembled in Rome, started providing the men and women living in the hills with water in 273 BC, though they had counted on natural springs up till then. Throughout this time period, there were only 2 other techniques capable of supplying water to higher areas, subterranean wells and cisterns, which gathered rainwater. To offer water to Pincian Hill in the early sixteenth century, they applied the emerging approach of redirecting the circulation from the Acqua Vergine aqueduct’s underground channel. The aqueduct’s channel was made available by pozzi, or manholes, that were placed along its length when it was first developed. While these manholes were created to make it less difficult to maintain the aqueduct, it was also possible to use containers to remove water from the channel, which was utilized by Cardinal Marcello Crescenzi from the time he acquired the property in 1543 to his passing in 1552. Whilst the cardinal also had a cistern to amass rainwater, it didn’t supply sufficient water. That is when he made the article decision to create an access point to the aqueduct that ran directly below his residential property.