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33-509: Its origin is uncertain, but most scholars agree that it was built by the Romans on an existing Etruscan route (between Pitigliano, Sorano and Sovana) on the path of the existing Etruscan "Via Cava"). However we can speak of the Via Clodia from the end of the 3rd century BC, and that from 225 BC it was paved. The existing road was probably used as a way of penetration and conquest of Etruria by

66-498: A copy of the boat and sailed it 500 miles (800 km) along the Mediterranean coast to test its seaworthiness. The area around the lake was always sparsely populated, but by the late Republic many waterfront villas had been built. The rich volcanic soil and the beautiful environment and views attracted rich patricians from Rome to build elaborate villae rusticae . Among these, Domitian's villa with thermal spa at Vicarello

99-695: A number of water mills on the Janiculum , including a sophisticated mill complex revealed by excavations in the 1990s under the present American Academy in Rome . Although the Aqua Traiana, along with all the other aqueducts, was cut by the Ostrogoths in 537, it was the only one restored by Belisarius before his departure in 547 in order to supply water to the grain mills. Over the next few centuries it once again fell in to ruin and ceased to function. It

132-540: A virtuous young woman. She was instructed by the deity to flee and not look back. Pausing to rest where the small church of St. Maria del Riposo would later be built, the woman eventually glanced back towards Sabate. However, in place of the city, she saw a vast lake, which came to be known as Lake Sabatine or Lago di Bracciano (Lake Bracciano.) 42°07′16″N 12°13′55″E  /  42.12111°N 12.23194°E  / 42.12111; 12.23194 Aqua Traiana The Aqua Traiana (later rebuilt and named

165-472: A wide variety of crops— wheat and barley — and collected others in the woods. "They had everything", says Fugazzola, "They ate grains, vegetables, and also lots of fruit – apples, plums, raspberries, strawberries" Especially in winter they supplemented their diet with acorns, which they stored in large ceramic jars. They cultivated flax to make linen. They planted opium poppies " One of their boats has been recovered. A team of Czech archaeologists built

198-410: Is an important tourist attraction. As it serves as a drinking water reservoir for the city of Rome, it has been under control since 1986 in order to avoid pollution of its waters. The use of motorboats is strictly forbidden (exceptions being made for a few professional fishermen and the authorities), and a centralised sewer system has been built for all the bordering towns in order to avoid any spoiling of

231-517: Is carried by the Archi di Boccalupo bridge. At one point there is a hole from which water flows into a collection pool. The height of the Archi di Boccalupo reaches 15 m and it has a brick curtain that alternates with opus reticulatum . Recent research and in particular publication of the Santa Fiora, the primary source, in 2010 spurred other explorers who have been finding new sources and parts of

264-496: Is the second largest lake in the region (second only to Lake Bolsena ) and one of the major lakes of Italy . It has a circular perimeter of approximately 32 km (20 mi) . Its inflow is from precipitation runoff and percolation, and from underground springs, and its outflow is the Arrone . The lake owes its origin to intense volcanic and tectonic activity from 600,000 to 40,000 years ago, which created many small volcanoes in

297-470: The Acqua Paola ) was a 1st-century Roman aqueduct built by Emperor Trajan and inaugurated in 109 AD. It channelled water from sources around Lake Bracciano , 40 km (25 mi) north-west of Rome, to ancient Rome. It joined the earlier Aqua Alsietina to share a common lower route into Rome. It had only fallen into disuse in the 17th century. Frontinus indicated in c. 98 AD that a new aqueduct

330-679: The Aqua Traiana , dedicated in 109 CE. The aqueduct was restored in the early 17th century by Pope Paul V , taking water to the Trastevere area of Rome and (via the Ponte Sisto ) to the Rione of Regola . At La Marmotta, a few hundred meters outside the village of Anguillara Sabazia, remains of an Early Neolithic lakeshore village, datable 5700 BC have been found, in works overseen by Maria Antonietta Fugazzola Delpino , director of

363-723: The Pigorini National Museum of Prehistory and Ethnography in Rome , and president of the Italian Institute of Prehistory and Protohistory . Thick oak pilings driven more than two meters into the subsoil have survived, thanks to anoxic lake-bottom sediments; dendrochronology dates the settlement very accurately, for local tree-ring sequences have already been thoroughly established. The oldest post-Fugazzola Delpino has discovered at La Marmotta dates from around 5,690 BC, but she thinks ongoing work may yet reveal

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396-489: The Sabatino territory. The main magma chamber was situated under the present lake of Bracciano. Its collapse created the depressed area now occupied by the lake, which is not a crater lake . Some small craters and calderas are still recognisable around the lake and in the immediate vicinity (Martignano, Baccano, Sacrofano). Three towns border the lake, Bracciano , Anguillara Sabazia and Trevignano Romano . The lake

429-696: The Tiber , intended for naval spectacles (and only two days after the Baths of Trajan on the Oppian Hill , in the heart of Rome, overlooking the lower Forum Romanum and Colosseum). Later the Aqua Traiana powered Rome's important flour mills which became critical to its survival during the Gothic Siege of Rome (537–538) when the Janiculum mills were famously put out of action by the Ostrogoths who cut

462-411: The 9th century. The Aqua Traiana was fed by a collection of aquifer sources around the western and northern sides of Lake Bracciano. The sources were identified in the 19th century in the following groups, running clockwise around the lake from Bracciano: The yield of various of these sources were measured and compared in the early 1690s. The most significant and copious source of the Aqua Traiana

495-514: The Antonine itinerary gives the route from Luca to Rome as being by the Via Clodia, wrongly as regards the portion from Florentia southwards, but perhaps rightly as regards that from Luca to Florentia. Clodius Vestalis was perhaps responsible for the construction of the first portion and of that from Florentia to Luca (and Luna). Moreover, he also founded the two Fora Clodii. The name seems, in imperial times, to have to some extent driven out that of

528-575: The Aqua Paola. The most copious sources at Santa Fiora, for example, had long since been purloined by duke Paolo Giordano Orsini, who had diverted them to power mills and industry in the city of Bracciano. The fountain at the end of the aqueduct was referred to as "Il Fontanone" – the Big Fountain – because of its size. It was in the form of a free-standing triumphal arch constructed in white marble with granite columns on high socles. Most of

561-510: The Borghese eagle and dragon, and held aloft by putti , it is presumed to Ponzio's design. Then, in 1690, Pope Alexander VIII commissioned Carlo Fontana , Giovanni's nephew, to enlarge the fountain. Carlo replaced the five small basins with an enormous single one, the Fontana dell'Acqua Paola , which remains to this day. In more recent times, a small garden has been arranged, hidden behind

594-573: The Cassia, and both roads were administered, with other minor roads, by the same curator. The Via Clodia Nova extension was constructed in 183 BC by the consul Marcus Claudius Marcellus . It started from Lucca and climbed the valley on the right bank of the river Serchio, crossed the Garfagnana region to the Piazza al Serchio, then passed over the col of Tea (955m) and through Fosdinovo before joining

627-802: The Marmottans came from far away, probably originally making their way along the Arrone to its source in Lake Bracciano, is simply that their culture was advanced. In the region around Lake Bracciano, according to Fugazzola Delpino, there is no sign of any but hunter-gatherers before the settlement was built at La Marmotta. The builders of the village had at their disposal, from the start, the entire " Neolithic package ": domesticated animals and plants, ceramic pots, polished stone tools, just as though they had unloaded all those things from their boats. They kept sheep and goats; they brought pigs and cows with them too, and two breeds of dog, and they planted

660-458: The Roman army begun in 310 BC. The road never seems to have had heavy traffic, only connecting Rome with Etruria inner north-western cities. The stretch between Bracciano and Oriolo Romano continues a straight line whose paving stones are found here and there, often uprooted. Some basalt sections appear in the territory of Tuscania, Oriolo Romano, Vejano and Blera. Its course, for the first 11 miles,

693-737: The Roman suburbs west of the Tiber River , including the Vatican , were suffering from chronic water shortage. The new pope persuaded the Municipality of Rome to pay for the development of an aqueduct to provide a better water supply to that part of the city. In 1612, the aqueduct was completed. It was initially called the Acqua Sabbatina or Acqua Bracciano, but was renamed Acqua Paola in honour of Paul V. Not all original Aqua Traiana sources were available to contribute water to

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726-669: The Via Cassia, Luni and the port. According to the Tabula Peutingeriana , the stages on the Via Clodia are: There are the remains of several Roman bridges along the road, including the Ponte Piro and Ponte della Rocca. Lake Bracciano Lake Bracciano ( Italian : Lago di Bracciano ) is a lake of volcanic origin in the Italian region of Lazio , 32 km (20 mi) northwest of Rome . It

759-452: The material was pillaged from the Forum of Nerva . Originally, it consisted of three large central arches, separated by columns, and a smaller one on each side. Water gushed into five basins at the base of each arch. The designer was Paul V's usual architect, Flaminio Ponzio . Among the team of sculptors involved was Ippolito Buzzi , who was responsible for the Borghese coat-of-arms, flanked by

792-566: The network. How distribution was achieved is mostly subject to speculation, but some suggest that the aqueduct crossed the River Tiber on a high bridge in the area of the modern Ponte Sublicio, and curved around the Aventine before heading north to the Oppio . The aqueduct was found on the Janiculum hill under the present American Academy in Rome by excavations in the 1990s. It fed

825-421: The period between the 16th and 17th centuries, a German historian and geographer documented in " Italia Antiqua " that the lake's calm waters occasionally revealed the submerged outlines of statues and edifices. Legend has it that Sabate was a flourishing city whose residents, however, strayed from ethical principles. In response, a deity unleashed a devastating catastrophe that obliterated the city, sparing only

858-462: The urban aqueducts. General Belisarius restored the supply of flour by using mills floating in the Tiber . This aqueduct alone was soon repaired but recent excavations revealed that a major branch of the aqueduct (of two) that had powered the mills was never cleared of its blockage from the siege. Nevertheless, the aqueduct continued to supply the Vatican and western regions of Rome until at least

891-481: The village to have been born a century or so earlier. She is more certain of when it died: within a decade or so of 5230 BC. "Since the sixth millennium BC, as the climate has grown wetter, the water level in Lake Bracciano has risen more than 25 feet (8 m), and so the ruins of the Neolithic lakeshore village are now buried in bottom mud 400 yards (370 m) offshore" (Delpino 2002). The strongest evidence that

924-531: The water quality, making Bracciano one of the cleanest lakes in Italy. The absence of motorized navigation favours sailing, canoeing and swimming. In the last few years, the lake and its surroundings have been brought under further protection by the creation of a regional park, the Parco Regionale del complesso lacuale di Bracciano Martignano . Water from the hills above the lake was transported to Rome by

957-566: Was being planned, and completion took about a decade. The inauguration of the aqueduct was recorded in the Fasti Ostienses as being dedicated with great fanfare in 109, and stated that the water was tota urbe salientem (issuing throughout the city). The date of inauguration was also significant for its intended uses, being only a few months before the Naumachia Traiani , the vast, grandstand-encircled pool on west bank of

990-518: Was pinpointed as close to the Fosso di Fiora in the modern district of Manziana. Subsequently little more was published about the sources for over 150 years probably because of the difficulty of accessing the terrain. Some additional sources of the Trajan aqueduct were identified in 1999 as Acqua Praecilia, located near Manziana. The initial flow of water is enriched along the way by other sources and

1023-482: Was restored a second time around the year 775 by Pope Adrian I as a way of alleviating the need for the Roman people to carry water in casks from the Tiber to supply the fountains at Saint Peter's Basilica . Subsequently, it once again fell into disrepair. Camillo Borghese, on his accession in 1605 as Pope Paul V , initiated work on rebuilding the Aqua Traiana, supervised from 1609 by Giovanni Fontana . At that time,

Via Clodia - Misplaced Pages Continue

1056-563: Was the same as that of the Via Cassia; it then diverged in a northwest direction and ran on the west side of the Lacus Sabatinus , past Forum Clodii and Blera . According to some it ended in Saturnia. At Forum Cassii it may have rejoined the Via Cassia, and it seems to have taken the same line as the latter as far as Florentia ( Florence ). However, beyond Florentia, between Luca ( Lucca ) and Luna, we find another Forum Clodii, and

1089-425: Was the ultimate example. However around the mid-1st century AD an environmental disaster occurred; the lake's water level rose, flooding the shore and many of the villas there more or less permanently. The lake was originally known as "Lake Sabatine," named after the adjacent Sabatine Mountains and the ancient volcanic system in the area. It is believed that a prosperous city called "Sabate" once stood nearby. In

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