Aqua Traiana

The Aqua Traiana (later rebuilt and named the Acqua Paola) was a 1st-century Roman aqueduct built by Emperor Trajan and inaugurated in 109 AD.

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).

[10] The most significant and copious source of the Aqua Traiana was pinpointed as close to the Fosso di Fiora in the modern district of Manziana.

[14][15] 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.

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.

It 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.

Camillo Borghese, on his accession in 1605 as Pope Paul V, initiated work on rebuilding the Aqua Traiana, supervised from 1609 by Giovanni Fontana.

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.