Aqua Virgo

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Aqua Virgo
Construction year 19 BC Chr.
length 21 km
Headwaters Headwaters Salone, Rome Municipio VIII.
Height of the source
above sea level		 24 m
Height in Rome 20 m
Cross section in the
lower reaches (W × H in m)		 0.6 x 1.8

The Aqua Virgo is one of the eleven aqueducts that supplied the city of Rome with water in ancient times, and the only ancient aqueduct that has been in continuous operation to this day. The constantly restored Aqua Virgo , which has been called Acqua Vergine or Acqua di Trevi in Italian since the renovations and extensions under Pope Nicholas V , still feeds the Trevi Fountain today , as well as the Barcaccia Fountain on the Piazza di Spagna and the fountains in Piazza Farnese .

history

Course of the Aqua Virgo (red)
The Trevi Fountain , fed by the Aqua Virgo
The Barcaccia fountain , fed by the Aqua Virgo
The Virgin shows Agrippa the spring, detail on the Trevi Fountain
Old fountain on the aqueduct

On June 9, 19 BC During the reign of Emperor Augustus , consul Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa opened the Aqua Virgo, the sixth Roman aqueduct, to supply the thermal baths he had also built on the Martius campus next to the Pantheon with the inauguration of a final fountain at the Pantheon.

According to legend, which was also given by Sextus Iulius Frontinus in his description of Rome's water supply, Agrippa and his soldiers are said to have rested on their return from the sea battle against Cleopatra and Mark Antony in the Sabine Mountains . There the thirsty Roman soldiers asked a young girl, a virgin, for water. She referred them to a source with particularly pure water, the source that later supplied the aqueduct. However, it is more likely that the name is based on the clarity and freshness of the Aqua Virgo , whose spring water, in contrast to other water extraction points along the rivers, was perceived as particularly "virgin".

A restoration took place under Emperor Constantine the Great . The Goths tried at the siege of Rome in the year 537 n. Chr. To use the underground water flow as secret passage to enter unnoticed in the city of Rome, as Procopius of Caesarea reported.

With the fall of the Roman Empire , the Aqua Virgo fell into disrepair. In the 8th century, Pope Hadrian I had the Aqua Virgo, the Aqua Claudia , the Aqua Marcia and the Aqua Traiana repaired and continued to secure the water supply for some parts of the city such as the Marsfeld and Trastevere .

In the late 12th century, the aqueduct ended with three outlets that fed fountain troughs on today's Via del Corso . The name Trevi, for the district and the fountain, may refer to these three springs or to the intersection of three streets (ital .: tre vie ) nearby.

In 1453, after restoration work , Pope Nicholas V gave the aqueduct a new end point and built the Trevi Fountain . During this time, the aqueduct received its current shape and was given the Italian name Acqua Vergine .

Once again repaired under Pope Sixtus IV , it was subjected to a thorough renovation from the source to the city between 1561 and 1570 during the reign of Pope Pius IV . On August 16, 1570, the new Acqua Vergine was opened in the Piazza di Trevi with great participation of the population and supplied Rome again with its maximum capacity. The municipality of Rome decided to build an extensive underground water supply network that would supply a total of 18 new public wells. These were particularly popular under Pope Gregory XIII. executed.

Part of the aqueduct can now be seen above ground in Via del Nazareno. In Vicolo del Putarello, near the Trevi Fountain, part of the Acqua Vergine and remains of residential houses from the imperial era were excavated when a cinema was built. The complex can be visited under the name Città del'Acqua.

In June 2007 the water pipe was interrupted after damage during construction work for a garage and a faulty repair, the repair took several months.

Since the renovation of the Trevi Fountain in 2015, the Acqua Vergine only feeds the large basin of the fountain, while the water features are operated by a circulation pump. A water softening system was also installed.

Water flow

The spring is located near the 8th milestone of Via Collatina , about three kilometers from Via Praenestina , it belonged to an estate belonging to Lucullus . The Aqua Virgo follows the Via Collatina.

The aqueduct has a gradient of only 3.6 meters over its length of around 20 km and ran underground for almost the entire route. Only the two kilometers after arriving in Rome at Mons Pincius (Pincio) were built as an aqueduct in the well-known arched construction. The line ended in the middle of Campus Martius . In its first phase it was used to supply the Martius campus and especially for the pond (Stagnum Agrippae) and the Agrippa thermal baths. The maximum flow rate was 104,000 cubic meters per day.

The fact that the difference in height between the source and the end of the aqueduct is only four meters made it impossible to supply the higher parts of Rome with water through this aqueduct.

At the time of Emperor Claudius , new arches were added to the previous aqueduct, which crossed Campus Martius and led along Via Lata through the Claudius Arch , a monumental testimony to the conquest of Britain in AD 44 by Claudius.

Water theft was also inevitable with the Aqua Virgo. In the period of Emperor Nero, for example, the amount of water largely disappeared for private use. For this purpose the water pipe was diverted several times.

Fountain

The Acqua Vergine has been supplying a number of fountains in the north-western old town of Rome since the 16th century, as it did in antiquity.

The most famous fountain and at the same time monumental end point of the aqueduct is the Trevi Fountain. It supplies other wells with water:

Nuovo Acquedotto Vergine

Since the cleanliness of the Acqua Vergine was no longer guaranteed due to the possibility of surface water ingress, the Nuovo Acquedotto Vergine was built between 1932 and 1937 , which today contributes to the drinking water supply of Rome. It gets its water from the same headwaters as the Acqua Vergine. Four of the eleven spring taps are currently in use with a water flow of around 1,200 l / s. A pumping station supplies the 50 m high water tower. In 1978 a new water reservoir with a capacity of 25,000 m 3 was built.

The headwaters, called Parco dell'Acqua Vergine , in the area of ​​the Tenuta Salone belongs to the Roman district of Acqua Vergine (Zona IX.) In the Municipio VIII. Delle Torri . It is located south of today's Rome-Salone train station and is protected as a source area.

The Nuovo Acquedotto Vergine reaches the water reservoir of Villa Umberto in Villa Borghese after 12.7 km , from where the water is fed into the drinking water network of the Roman old town.

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Aqua Virgo  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cesare D'Onofrio: Il Facchino di via Lata ed altre fontane minori con acqua di Trevi (= Collana di studi e testi per la storia della città di Roma. 11, ZDB -ID 791445-3 ). Romana Società Editrice, Rome 1991, p. 22.
  2. ↑ CIL 6, 31564 .
  3. ↑ Cesare D'Onofrio: Il Facchino di via Lata ed altre fontane minori con acqua di Trevi (= Collana di studi e testi per la storia della città di Roma. 11, ZDB -ID 791445-3 ). Romana Società Editrice, Rome 1991, p. 18.
  4. ↑ Cesare D'Onofrio: Il Facchino di via Lata ed altre fontane minori con acqua di Trevi (= Collana di studi e testi per la storia della città di Roma. 11, ZDB -ID 791445-3 ). Romana Società Editrice, Rome 1991, p. 28.
  5. ↑ page of Città del'Acqua ( Memento of 25 February 2009 at the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ St. Galler Tagblatt, June 16, 2007  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.tagblatt.ch  
  7. ^ Homepage of the ACEA water supply company in Rome, Italian, accessed on March 15, 2018

Coordinates: 41 ° 54 ′ 36.8 "  N , 12 ° 37 ′ 36.8"  E