Cascata delle Marmore

In 271 BC, in order to reclaim the land (and to possibly remove the supposed threat of malaria to the nearby city of Rieti[citation needed]), the Roman consul Manius Curius Dentatus ordered the construction of a canal (the Curiano Trench) to divert the stagnant waters over the cliff near Marmore, thus directing it into the Nera River below.

[3] Lack of maintenance in the canal resulted in a decrease of flow that eventually allowed the wetland to reappear.

Lord Byron visited the waterfall and referenced it in the narrative poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, published between 1812 and 1818.

[4] In 1896, the newly formed steel mills in Terni began using the water flow in the Curiano Trench to power their operation.

Another observatory near the peak offers a panoramic view of both the falls and the Nera Valley below[citation needed].

A rainbow seen in the falls