Acqua Vergine

Last updated November 08, 2023

Acqua Vergine is one of several Roman aqueducts that deliver pure drinking water to Rome. Its name derives from its predecessor Aqua Virgo, which was constructed by Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa in 19 BC. Its terminal castellum is located at the Baths of Agrippa, and it served the vicinity of Campus Martius through its various conduits. In an effort to restore fresh water to Rome during the Renaissance, Pope Nicholas V, in 1453, renovated the main channels of the Aqua Virgo^[1] and added numerous secondary conduits under Campo Marzio. The original terminus, called a mostra, which means showpiece, was the stately, dignified wall fountain designed by Leon Battista Alberti ^[1]^[2] in Piazza dei Crociferi. Due to several additions and modifications to the end-most points of the conduits during the years that followed, during the Renaissance and Baroque periods, the Acqua Vergine culminated in several magnificent mostre - the Trevi Fountain ^[1] and the fountains of Piazza del Popolo.

Courses

Beginning as rainwater falling on the Alban Hills to the east of Rome, then percolating through miles of volcanic tuff, the water springs forth in marshland approximately eight miles to the east of Rome off Via Collatina, in a small town called Salone. From the same source, but running different courses, two separate aqueducts emerge:

Acqua Vergine Antica, which travels underground through some of the same channels constructed by Agrippa's engineers, proceeds into Rome on the northeast under Via di Pietralata, at a point formerly called Fosso Pietralata, crosses Via Nomentana, flows westward toward and through the park of Villa Ada, passes under the western limits of the Villa Borghese, traverses the gardens of Villa Medici, descends the Pincio to Piazza di Spagna, extends under Renaissance Rome to burst forth into the Roman sky in the spectacular, baroque mostra on the Quirinal Hill, the fountain of Trevi.
Acqua Vergine Nuova, which travels into Rome from the northeast under Via Tiburtina, flows under the Pincio to Porta Pinciana, where it branches into 2 channels:
- one passes southwest to link up, but not mingle, with Acqua Vergine Antica just behind Piazza di Spagna and descends the Pincio to emit its water through the fine, elegant sprays of its regal mostra, the lions of Piazza del Popolo
- one passes northwest under Galoppatoio, curves through the Borghese Gardens, makes a sharp southerly turn toward Piazzale Flaminio to make its triumphant appearance in the triple-arch mostra cascading on the western slopes of the Pincio overlooking Piazza del Popolo.

Termini

Today, as in days of old, the Acqua Vergine is regarded as furnishing some of the purest drinking-water in Rome, reputed for its restorative qualities. Many people to this day can be seen filling containers for drinking and cooking in its splendid fountains, including:

Trevi Fountain
The fountains of Piazza del Popolo
- The Cascade on the Pincio
- The Lions of the central fountain
- The Rome Group
The Pantheon fountain in Piazza della Rotonda
The Colonna fountain in Piazza Colonna
The fountain of the Tortoises (Tartarughe) in Piazza Mattei
The fountain of Campo de' Fiori
The north and south fountains of Piazza Navona
- The Neptune Fountain
- The Moor fountain
The fountains of Piazza Venezia
Il Facchino (The Porter) in Via Lata
Fontana della Barcaccia in Piazza di Spagna
Il Babuino (The Baboon) in Via del Babuino.

Related Research Articles

Campo Marzio is the 4th rione of Rome, identified by the initials R. IV. It belongs to the Municipio I and covers a smaller section of the area of the ancient Campus Martius. The logo of this rione is a silver crescent on a blue background.

Giacomo della Porta (1532–1602) was an Italian architect and sculptor, who worked on many important buildings in Rome, including St. Peter's Basilica. He was born at Porlezza, Lombardy and died in Rome.

The Aqua Virgo was one of the eleven Roman aqueducts that supplied the city of ancient Rome. It was completed in 19 BC by Marcus Agrippa, during the reign of the emperor Augustus and was built mainly to supply the contemporaneous Baths of Agrippa in the Campus Martius.

Piazza del Popolo is a large urban square in Rome. The name in modern Italian literally means "People's Square", but historically it derives from the poplars after which the church of Santa Maria del Popolo, in the northeast corner of the piazza, takes its name.

Giuseppe Valadier was an Italian architect and designer, urban planner and archaeologist and a chief exponent of Neoclassicism in Italy.

The Via del Corso is a main street in the historical centre of Rome. It is straight in an area otherwise characterized by narrow meandering alleys and small piazzas. Considered a wide street in ancient times, the Corso is approximately 10 metres wide, and it only has room for two lanes of traffic and two narrow sidewalks. The northern portion of the street is a pedestrian area. The length of the street is roughly 1.5 kilometres.

The Acqua Felice is one of the aqueducts of Rome, completed in 1586 by Pope Sixtus V, whose birth name, which he never fully abandoned, was Felice Peretti. The first new aqueduct of early modern Rome, its source is at the springs at Pantano Borghese, off Via Casilina. Its length is fifteen miles (24 km), running underground for eight miles (13 km) from its source, first in the channel of Aqua Alexandrina, then alternating on the arches of the Aqua Claudia and the Aqua Marcia for seven miles (11 km) to its terminus at the Fontana dell'Acqua Felice on the Quirinal Hill, standing to one side of the Strada Pia, so as to form a piazza in this still new part of Rome. The engineer was Giovanni Fontana, brother of Sixtus' engineer-architect Domenico Fontana, who recorded that the very day the new pope entered the Lateran, he decided that he would bring water once again to the hills of Rome, which had remained waterless and sparsely inhabited, largely by monasteries, since the original ancient aqueducts had been destroyed in the sixth century. From the source, which Sixtus purchased, there was only a very small fall, and the work required an underground conduit as well as an aqueduct carried on arches.

The Fontana di Piazza Nicosia is a fountain in Rome, Italy, is the first of the modern fountains of Rome. It is located in the square with the same name.

The fountain in the Piazza Colonna is a fountain in Rome, Italy, designed by the architect Giacomo Della Porta and constructed by the Fiesole sculptor Rocco Rossi between 1575 and 1577.

Flaminio–Piazza del Popolo is an underground station on Line A of the Rome Metro, inaugurated in 1980. The station is situated on the large Piazzale Flaminio, in the Flaminio quarter outside the Aurelian Walls, next to Piazza del Popolo, and is near the Campus Martius.

Spagna is an underground station on Line A of the Rome Metro, in the rione Campo Marzio, which was inaugurated in 1980.

The Fontana delle Tartarughe is a fountain of the late Italian Renaissance, located in Piazza Mattei, in the Sant'Angelo district of Rome, Italy. It was built between 1580 and 1588 by the architect Giacomo della Porta and the sculptor Taddeo Landini. The bronze turtles around the upper basin, usually attributed either to Gian Lorenzo Bernini or Andrea Sacchi, were added in either 1658 or 1659 when the fountain was restored.

The Fontana dell'Acqua Felice, also called the Fountain of Moses, is a monumental fountain located in the Quirinale District of Rome, Italy. It marked the terminus of the Acqua Felice aqueduct restored by Pope Sixtus V. It was designed by Domenico Fontana and built in 1585–1588. It is located at the intersection of Largo Santa Susanna and Via Venti Settembre; across and diagonal from the Largo, is the church of Santa Susanna, while across Via Venti Settembre is the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria.

The Fontana del Nettuno is a monumental fountain located in the Piazza del Popolo in Rome.

The Piazza della Rotonda is a piazza in Rome, Italy, on the south side of which is located the Pantheon. The square gets its name from the Pantheon's informal title as the church of Santa Maria Rotonda.

Acqua may refer to:

References

Aquae Urbis Romae: The Waters of the City of Rome, Dr. Katherine Wentworth Rinne
Katherine W. Rinne, "Between Precedent and Experiment: the Restoration of the Acqua Vergine (1560-1570)", in L. Roberts, S. Schaffer and P. Dear (eds.), The mindful hand: inquiry and invention from the late Renaissance to early industrialisation (Edita/University of Chicago Press: 2007), 95-115.
David Karmon, "Restoring the ancient water supply system in Renaissance Rome: the Popes, the civic administration, and the Acqua Vergine", in Waters of Rome, Occasional Papers (3), 2005
Morton, H.V. (1966). The Waters of Rome. London: The Connoisseur and Michael Joseph.

1 2 3 Gross, Hanns (1990). Rome in the Age of Enlightenment: the Post-Tridentine syndrome and the ancien regime. New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 28. ISBN 0-521-37211-9.
↑ Tavernor, Robert (1998). On Alberti and the art of building. New Haven: Yale University Press. p. 15. ISBN 0-300-07615-0.

External links

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[gross-1] 1 2 3 Gross, Hanns (1990). Rome in the Age of Enlightenment: the Post-Tridentine syndrome and the ancien regime. New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 28. ISBN 0-521-37211-9.

[2] Tavernor, Robert (1998). On Alberti and the art of building. New Haven: Yale University Press. p. 15. ISBN 0-300-07615-0.

[1]

[2]