One of the eleven aqueducts that fed ancient Rome, the Aqua Virgo was completed in 19 BC, a feat of engineering that carried water from springs some twenty kilometres away. Like all Roman aqueducts, it relied on a precise, continuous gradient to deliver its flow, a system that was both ingenious and remarkably durable. The channel’s name, meaning ‘the virgin’, is said to derive from a local legend, though the details are lost to time. After the fall of the empire, much of the city’s water infrastructure fell into ruin, but the Aqua Virgo was revived in the eighth century under Pope Adrian I. It is this resilience, the ability to outlast the civilisation that built it, that makes the aqueduct remarkable. Its waters still run today, feeding the fountains of the historic centre, a quiet testament to Roman hydraulic skill and medieval pragmatism.
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