Yes, there has been more than one aqueduct. There is the current one, which was inaugurated in 1884 and is still functioning with 30 percent of its original cast iron pipes. And there was the first one, begun in 1425 and working until 1884. This is the one that in my opinion deserves our astonishment and admiration, seeing that the duct for the aqua was boats, buckets and men.
A view of Fusina, watery gateway to the Venetian hinterland a mere 4.4 km / 2.7 miles from Venice.Let me set the scene. This is a view of what the Venetians accomplished in order to get their water supply from the Brenta River. The yellow line is the Brenta today. The red line is its original, natural riverbed, which empties into the lagoon at Fusina (anciently called “Lizzafusina”). The Brenta couldn’t be permitted to rampage all the way into the lagoon along its original path (red) because of the difficulty in managing a wild river, and because it presented a clear danger of silting up the lagoon in that area. So the Venetians re-routed the Brenta southward to get it out of the way, essentially, and used the old watercourse as a more domesticated and manageable stream, naming it the Naviglio del Brenta, or navigable Brenta. As if that weren’t enough rockstar water wrangling, they later cut another channel (fuchsia) called the “canale Novissimo” (super-new canal) in order to manage the waterflow in the Naviglio. But by the early 1600’s it was clear that the water in the Naviglio wasn’t reliably clean enough for continued drinking, so in 1609 the “Seriola” channel (teal) was cut. It debouched at Fusina just as the Naviglio did (and still does), but this stretch of water was stringently checked for any possible sources of pollution (soap from laundry, farm runoff, trash, etc.). Today the Seriola is reduced to a dribbly little stream that disappears along the way, not even a shadow of its former glory. Zoom in on google maps and you can follow these channels as they are today.
First, some background: At the beginning of the 14th century, Venice was one of the most populous cities in Europe, with some 200,000 inhabitants. Which meant that when the plague struck in 1348, there were plenty of victims. On the positive side, this reduction of thirsty mouths meant that the survivors now had plenty of water on hand in the wells. On the negative side, a comprehensible terror of contamination had set in which made people reluctant to use them. Supplementary water had been brought for years from nearby rivers but now that, too, had become suspect.
You may have noticed that Venetians were not, generally speaking, an easily daunted people. They built palaces on mudflats awash in brackish tides, to take an example at random. So a problem presented itself: Need more fresh water. A solution was born: Pick one river, keep it clean, harvest the water and bring it from there to the city.
That decision made, in 1425 the health department decreed that the Brenta would be the only river to be used for drinking water. (Among its many fine points was its nearness to the city.) Laws and regulations were enacted to protect its purity, and a system devised by which river water was loaded onto boats that were rowed, of course, or sailed, if possible, to Venice; there the water was transferred into smaller boats and then finally into the wells, public and private. (Not directly into the wells, of course, but down the gatoli so that the water would benefit from the same filtering process as rainwater.) After which it was paid for, naturally. This is Venice, where money is king.
The Brenta River rises in the lake of Caldonazzo inland 144 km (89 miles) toward the Alps, here shown at Carpane’-Valstagna in the Sugana valley. True, that day it had rained heavily in the mountains so the river was fairly unruly, but rain and snow are what one hopes for if one is waiting for water downstream. I think it’s clear that a river that looked even somewhat like this at the lagoon edge would not be anyone’s first choice, even apart from the question of how much soil it’s carrying. On that day it was carrying a lot.The Naviglio is the domesticated branch of the Brenta reduced to manageable dimensions, here hosting the “Riviera Fiorita,” an annual day-long boat procession from Stra to Moranzani. Notice the remains of the towpath along the right-hand bank.
And so the acquaroli (acquaioli in Venetian) or watermen, once minor figures in the drama of Venetian water supply, became lead players, and formed their own guild in 1471. They rowed (I keep stressing that, but they also sailed) thousands of liters of water to Venice in enormous cargo boats still called burci (singular: burcio). If they carried only water, it was poured into the burcio itself, indubitably into compartments; if any enterprising acquaroli used their boat on off days to haul garbage away, they were required to carry the water in specially designed tubs. (As if that needed to be specified?)
This is a burcio in 1948, which as you see was rigged for sailing whenever possible. The crew lived aboard in the spaces beneath the bow and stern. The cargo here was sand. (Photo: nauticautile.altervista.org). And yes, they rowed them when necessary. Lino says that they always had a smaller boat tied astern.The burci were riverboats, definitely not designed for the sea. This is the port of Noventa on the Piave river; Lino remembers when burci like these would be moored in the same way along the Zattere.A burcio entering the lock at Moranzani, the last one on the Naviglio before reaching Fusina. Boats here typically were towed along a towpath by animals — oxen, mules, horses, or if there was nothing else, by men. The boatmen would often have a dog, and you can imagine it; what we might call a “junkyard dog” comes out, even today, as calling something or someone a “can da burcio” — a burcio dog.
Given the importance of their cargo, the guild of the acquaroli was overseen by not one, but several government agencies: The “Giustizieri Vechi,” “Provedadori sora la Giustizia Vechia,” “Magistrato a la Sanità” (health) and “Colegio a la Milizia da Mar.” The men were also required to make various payments to the noble families which had been granted the concession to maintain what became an impressive industrial complex.
The acquaroli had to keep a sharp eye on their product, because there were laws forbidding the use of public water for private gain. There were many water-intensive crafts in Venice — dyeing, wool-washing, laundry-washing, glass-making, to pick a few, and they were required to buy their own water. The acquaroli were authorized to stand guard on the public wells to make sure any private entrepreneurs didn’t treacherously attempt to steal the water for which the city had paid. They watched the wells out of the goodness of their hearts? Not really. Water in the public wells was paid at a lower rate than the private wells, so the acquaroli had a vested interest in making sure the cheap water wasn’t being removed by the expensive-water customers.
There was also a subset of some additional 100 acquaroli who didn’t belong to the guild. They were illegal but that didn’t bother anybody; they had their own waterboats and were permitted, for an annual fee of 20 soldi paid to the guild, to sell their water retail to any customer standing there with a bucket or pot.
When the burcio arrived at its established destination in the city, the water would be offloaded onto smaller boats which were then rowed to whatever wells were on the schedule to be filled that day.
Two acquaroli pouring the fresh water from their smaller boat down a wooden trough which emptied into the gatoli of whatever well they were hired to fill. Unhappily I haven’t found any other illustrations of this process. This pen-and-ink- plus-watercolor depiction is by Giovanni Grevembroch (1753).
How the water got to Venice is one thing, but how the water got to the burci is an even more impressive tale.
A drawing of Lizzafusina in 1500 by Nicolo’ Dal Cortivo. The “chanaleto de Lizafoxine” leads to the right (eastward) and was the channel by which any and all boats arrived at Fusina.This was the set-up at what was originally called Lizzafusina, but now is simply Fusina. We’re looking upstream, obviously. This and the following four historical drawings are from a PowerPoint presentation by A.A.T.O. Consiglio di Bacino Laguna di Venezia prepared by engineer Tullio Cambruzzi. (Caption translated by me): “The ‘carro’ (wagon) of Lizzafusina. In the old days the zone was called Lizzafusina or Issa Fusina or also Zafusina: Issa signifies … an urging to raise something heavy” (as in “haul away!”); “Fusina indicates an ‘officina’ (workshop). Therefore we can affirm that Fusina signifies the entire “water building” that served to make the carro function. Lissa or Issa could signify also “slitta” (sled), because the carro made the boats slide from the lagoon at the Brenta.” Evidently this system functioned to raise (and presumably lower) boats between the lagoon and the Naviglio until the lock was dug slightly upstream at Moranzani about 1613. The fees for maintaining this installation, the duties and excise fees paid by commercial traffic passing from the mainland to the lagoon went to a part of the Pesaro family, who were usefully nicknamed the “Pesaro del Caro,” or “of the carro.” When the lock was built it put the “carro” out of business, and the Pesaros were given the operation at the lock at Moranzani instead; in 1649 alone it earned them 1530 ducats.A close-up of the red-roofed building that housed the “carro,” into which the burci entered from Venice (direction lower right).“The machines to raise the water –These machines were used at Lizzafusina in the second half of the 1500’s before the construction of the Seriola. The purpose was to make the operation of loading the burci more efficient. The wheel (A) was fitted out with triangular boxes which were made to turn by a system of gears moved by animal power.” The water is being discharged into a trough leading to the waiting burcio (far left).
The system itself worked well, but by the early 1600’s the Venetian government had to admit that despite efforts to ensure its potability, the water from the Brenta was not always of the most limpid. So Cristoforo Sabbadino, a hydraulic engineer, was engaged as the head of a team to build a better system. (Let it be noted that the idea was totally his, and he’d been proposing it for years before the government finally agreed to undertake the project.)
Between 1609 and 1611 Sabbadino cut a channel, the “Seriola,” from the Brenta upriver at Dolo. This was now to be the official drinking-water supply for Venice and was so marked at that point by a marble tablet inscribed “HINC URBIS POTUS (“this is the potable water for the city”). The Seriola was 13.5 km long and one meter wide (8.3 miles and 3.2 feet), and brought the water downstream to the lagoon edge at Moranzani, having been passed through a series of filtering tanks. The Seriola’s quality was overseen by the Savi Esecutori alle Acque, and anyone caught besmirching its crystal depths was subject to heavy fines.
This historic marker still exists, but one source says it’s on via Garibaldi in Dolo, and another says it’s in the Dolo city hall. Anyway, it’s somewhere. Someday I’ll get to the bottom of this. “Seriola,” or Ceriola, was an ancient Venetian term meaning a small or narrow watercourse.
Here is the scheme for the Seriola:
Note that the top of the image is east. (“Alveo” means riverbed.) Working from the top clockwise we see “Riverbed called the Soprabondante” (“super-abundant,” known today simply as the Bondante); Brenta Novissima, which is the fuchsia line on the map at the beginning of this post and now called the “super-new canal”; the Muson Novo, or new Muson River clearly dug between the Seriola and the Muson Vecchio,” or old Muson, and riverbed of the Bottenigo River. The “Brenta Morta” or “dead Brenta” indicates the Naviglio which has been sidelined from the water-supply game.
So the water flows down the Seriola until it nears the lagoon’s edge.
“The Seriola arrived at Moranzani. Here there were burci always ready to carry the potable water to Venice where, according to the orders of the Senate, it was sold in the various districts. A branch of the Seriola went to the Bucca, where in the winter ice was produced and conserved in the nearby “giazzara” to be carried to Venice in the summer.” I don’t see either of those components on this map, so we will just have to imagine it.
Trust me, this post contains only the most minuscule part of the water-management system devised and maintained by the Venetians, and if I had time I’d have read more and basically kept the story going indefinitely. But anyone who might be even momentarily tempted to consider the construction of MOSE something impressive should pause to reflect on what was involved in moving all these rivers around. Which had become something of a Venetian specialty; in the same period (1600-1604) they also cut the Po River at Porto Viro and detoured it in a similar way to avoid imminent silting-up of the lagoon near Chioggia. The Po is the largest river in Italy. But as I may have mentioned, the Venetians were virtually impossible to daunt.
Let’s return to the subject of the public water supply. Even with thousands of rain-collecting wells in the city, Venice needed more water. (Bear in mind that in the 1600’s Venice had some 200,000 inhabitants). And they were thirsty, needed to wash their clothes, needed to dye their wool and silk, and so on.
I do not know how many artesian wells have ever been drilled here, so please do not ask me. But they were precious, obviously, especially when there was a drought. Or when bombs began to fall in the 20th century, threatening the aqueduct.
This trusty artesian well is in the Campo dei Ognissanti in Dorsoduro. Like many fountains here it lacks any sort of basin, no matter how small, for animals to drink from. I do not understand this.A restoration a few years ago added the official inscription…“Prof.ta M 209.75 ” means “Profondita’ (profundity, depth) 209.75 meters,” or 688.15 feet.This artesian well in Campo San Basso, otherwise known as the Piazzetta dei Leoncini, has been bubbling up for centuries. It is said to be the deepest in the city. I know no more, but if it’s deeper than the one at Ognissanti it deserves more respect than it ever gets.There are always pigeons splashing around here, it must be something like a spa for them.The upwelling water is easy to discern here. Curiously, while this pool must be a godsend to the pigeons and passing dogs, there is absolutely no provision here for supplying water to parched passersby. It’s the opposite of the fountain at the Ognissanti (and elsewhere). What is so hard about the notion of supplying water to everybody/thing?Do you see a well in Campazzo San Sebastiano? Look closer.This metal cap covers the pipe which once carried the artesian water, and presumably could still carry it. This is near Lino’s childhood neighborhood, and he walked by here on the way to elementary school every day. He remembers that this well was open during the Second World War, with a big tank set up to collect the water. Considering the bombs falling on Mestre (crucial railway node and near the industrial zone), the risk of losing water from the aqueduct was not to be taken lightly. I think it would be an excellent idea to open this again. There are plenty of dehydrated people who pass by here every day.This is a very rough sketch of the water-tank-and-faucets set up on the artesian well in Campazzo San Sebastiano. As Lino recalls it, the tank was sitting on sawhorses, or some supporting structure (not shown). The tank was filled by means of a tube attached to the fountain, and the water from the tank filled two long, closed metal tubes extending from both sides. Faucets were punched into these tubes. There was an overflow trough below the faucets, and an overflow tube from the top of the tank emptied the excess water into the trough. The excess water flowed away toward one of the still-open “gatoli,” or drains, that once conveyed rainwater to a subterranean cistern, as written about in my earlier post. Women brought their cooking pots, buckets, whatever container was called for, and filled up.One is strangely tempted to bring a set of strong pliers…One is strangely not tempted to be arrested and hauled away.Campo Sant’Agnese has a real, if decommissioned, well (background), and the scar of something (foreground) that looks very like a well. Perhaps this was one of those described by Tassini (translated by me): “In the 1500’s a well was drilled of the type called artesian. Marin Sanuto writes that ‘on July 8, 1533 there came to the Colegio sier Vincenzo Zorzi, sier Polo Loredan, sier Almoro’ Morexini Proveditori de Comun saying that following the orders of the Serenissimo and the most illustrious Signoria, they went to see the well in the district of Sant’ Agnese…'” He goes on to say that the engineers had dug to a depth of 16 “passi,” and had found fresh water. (A Venetian “passo” was equivalent to 1.738 meters, or 5.7 feet. Therefore they hit the water table at 91.2 feet down.) There’s more.Campo Sant’ Agnese on a tranquil summer day. It wasn’t so tranquil on an unspecified day in 1866 when a crew was digging a well in a little garden attached to a brewery here and they hit water. Tassini: “A column of mud and sand, freed by the water and gas from the turbid strata pierced by the drill, hurled itself 40 meters (131 feet) in the air, deluging this material on the church as well as the nearby buildings and damaging them because of the collapse of the underlying terrain.” No report on the effect on the beer.
Most of the fountains that we see today around the city running day and night are supplied by the city aqueduct. My next post will reveal the dazzling engineering of the historic — pre-20th century — Venetian aqueduct, but at the moment I want to acknowledge the burbling municipal H2O that has revived countless tourists.
As here. Filling up your own bottle is an excellent way to avoid paying the exorbitant prices for bottled water.Thirsty dogs just have to figure out how to drink from a falling jet of water. It’s not that hard, but if I had a dog I’d definitely carry around a collapsible bowl. I mean, come on.But certainly we’re all grateful for the running water. At least when the water IS running.There is a number of fountains that are permanently dry, turned off, extinguished, whatever the correct term is. If you’re thirsty, seeing a fountain with no water appears to be something between a mirage and a deliberate affront.However, there are some fountains, such as this one near SS. Giovanni and Paolo, that flow more or less briskly during the summer. The reason for closing some fountains between December and March is precisely to save water, seeing that the need for water isn’t as urgent when it’s freezing cold and there are relatively few tourists around, and those that are around aren’t perishing of thirst.Then there are fountains which have been closed summer and winter. This was running just fine till a few years ago, and even though I live nearby, and could easily run home for a drink, you have no idea how often on a sweltering summer day I would gladly avail myself of some water. But no. It must be part of the group of 70 fountains which have been closed because they weren’t in high-traffic tourist areas (a statistic dating from 2008). Since then, enough of the city has become a high-traffic tourist area, especially when the sun is at its broilingest, to nullify that exception. Open the dang fountain already!The entire world seems to have given up on this fountain, just two steps from our house in an unimportant little courtyard. Until recently it was running (well, dripping) just fine, minding its own business. Then it was sealed, and now this.
Many people have asked me the obvious question: All that water running all the time, isn’t it a tremendous waste? Veritas, the water company, says that it isn’t. I suppose they would. I haven’t found a contrasting opinion to that, but I have had to suspend more research because life is short.
The logical solution, as people occasionally suggest, is to install faucets so that only the water that’s needed at the moment comes pouring out. Simple? Of course not!
An Italian member of an online political forum, who goes by the name “gava,” wrote (translation by me): “My project to install faucets to eliminate waste of precious drinkable water from the fountains is not easy to realize.
“In Venice there are about 200 fountains which consume about 800 cubic meters of water a day (800,000 liters, or 211,337 US gallons). A considerable amount, there’s no doubt. But let’s think for a moment, the water comes directly from the spring at Scorze’, it has no costs for pumping or purification, they only add some chlorine.
“Furthermore, the installation of a switch would increase the bacterial load in the first stretch of pipe, and the controls made by ASL (the local health department) demonstrate this. Practically speaking, to install faucets would give a tiny economic advantage and many disadvantages, from the maintenance of the pushbuttons (of the faucet) which are subject to frequent breaks, to the presence of bacteria in the first tract of water. (I think he means where the water exits from the faucet, which when the faucet is closed would promote buildup of bacteria.)
“Over the past five years, I’ve seen a maximum of 30 functioning fountains in Venice (note: VeniceWiki has made a map but a quick check shows it is incomplete). Those that have been closed for years may have something more than simple bacteria in the pipes, up to real encrustation. In any case, I still think that the system of filtering and taps could be improved, I don’t want it to be an excuse for throwing water away.”
An unnamed ex-member of this forum replied: “I remember that some time back they started to install pushbuttons but the main problem was that they break really easily, and so a good number of fountains were put back to the old system.”
To complicate matters, Veritas is responsible only for the fountains in the public parks; the others are maintained by “other organs,” which I have not identified. But the fact that all the fountains aren’t managed by the same company means that of course there will be administrative and/or bureaucratic problems involved in any change.
So while we’re all waiting for simplicity and conservation to reign on earth, I suggest you drink the fountain water as much as you can. After all, it’s there for you.
I don’t know how much attention is paid elsewhere to International Women’s Day, but in Venice it’s “let a thousand mimosas bloom” day. The usual illegal street vendors are everywhere, there are sprigs and bouquets in the supermarkets and bars, little yellow balls all over the place, even on the tops of voluptuous chocolate cakes in the pastry shop down the street. It’s as if the entire world woke up and said “MUST. HAVE. MIMOSA.”
But this year some women’s groups in 70 Italian cities decided that flowers and even voluptuous chocolate once a year weren’t enough to draw attention to the plight of women. And plights there are, everywhere you look. Ironically, though, these advocates added a honking big plight yesterday to their sisters’ everyday burdens by calling a general 24-hour transit strike. On the mainland this inconvenience would be bad enough; in Venice it’s madness. A woman who had to get to work, or to her university classes, or to the hospital for some reason, was compelled to re-shape her day in drastic and, possibly, financially negative ways. As in, “I can’t get to work today.” Or at least “I’m coming in early,” or “late,” or “half a day,” or something inconvenient.
Their objective was to focus the world’s attention on women’s rights (lack of) and violence against women (super-abundance of). Right there with you; I just don’t see how slicing and dicing the day of hundreds of women is going to help.
The usual vendors. On the mainland they were patrolling the intersections and stop lights. I suppose the money they make goes to help some women?
For the record, I note that buses and vaporettos were scheduled to operate in the usual “protected phases” of 6:00 – 8:59 AM and 4:30 – 7:29 PM. This sounds good, but these numbers need to be decoded. The “until” time indicates when the vaporetto will be back at home base, which is usually pretty far from wherever you’re standing. That makes sense, of course — the pilot isn’t going to stop his vehicle at 8:59 in the middle of the Grand Canal and put everybody ashore.
Take the 5.1 as an example: If you’re at the train station heading toward the Lido, in order to be at the Lido before 8:59 means your last chance to board is at 8:04. Same with the return; the afternoon run begins at 4:30 at the Lido, so if you’re at Rialto trying to get to Piazzale Roma (A) you should just walk it, for heaven’s sake, you can make it in 20 minutes, or (B) take the #1 which leaves the Lido at 4:32 and reaches Rialto at 5:15 PM and Ple. Roma at 5:37. I suppose transit strikes work this way everywhere, but if you have the option of taking a taxi or an Uber or a friend with a car or a bike, you don’t have to make these calculations the way we have to do in Venice. While you’re waiting, are you thinking about violence against women? Possibly not.
As for mimosa nosegays, some illegal vendors acquire the blossoms by stripping the trees in private gardens, or wherever a tree may be found that isn’t guarded by armed vigilantes. Some people woke up to discover their mimosa trees standing there naked.
What is my conclusion? I have none, except to suggest that everyone try not to make women’s lives any more complicated or even perilous than they already are. That would be a start. You can do it even without a placard.
This branch never made it to the bouquet stage — some occult hand merely placed it here.
The country has been lashed for a week by a meteorological monster originating in Siberia, and anybody who had to brave the sub-zero temperatures and 30 mph winds didn’t need to be told that it hadn’t wafted in from the Seychelles. Up until yesterday there was snow, it seemed, everywhere but here.
Then finally here it was. I love it, but of course I don’t have to drive in it, or take a train (many were blocked), or do anything other than wrap myself up like Boris Karloff as The Mummy and get out and look at it.
The hardy men — Massimo and Luca — who sell fruit and vegetables from this boat every morning but Sunday had to give in to three days of forced vacation. You think they were enjoying themselves? They told me this morning they’d been worrying about the produce in the storeroom, Maybe they should have bought a few smudgepots, like the citrus growers in Florida.
The next day (today), it was melting. I hate that part because it’s ugly and because who knows how long it will be before it snows again? So arrivederci, snow. At least you’re not turning to ice.
Slush, basically, the stage that happens everywhere. But here we have to take the dreaded Istrian stone into account, which apart from being beautiful and perfectly suited to life in Venice (resistance to compression, freezing and thawing, and salt, primarily), is one of the most slippery substances on earth when wet. Don’t lick the pump handle when the temperature is below freezing, and do not step on Istrian stone when it’s wet. You will not be vertical for long.While everybody else was thinking about problems caused by the snow, not many spared a thought for the birds. They were living the high life drinking all the snowmelt they could hold. Every little depression in the pavement of the fondamenta in front of the Naval Museum was a veritable trough for the Common Seagulls (Larus ridibundus). Sipping delicately, occasionally biting a little snow, these enchanting little birds are wearing their “wedding garb,” signified by the black feathers on their heads which appear in March.
And while I was enjoying this little festa, I spared a thought for the pigeons yesterday when this water was frozen solid. There had been a few of them dejectedly pecking away at the ice, trying to get at least a few drops out of what they clearly recognized as a shallow puddle which had turned against them. I’m not sure how long they kept at it, it was too cold and windy to stand there watching to see how much time and effort they were going to dedicate to the effort before quitting and going home. Maybe they succumbed to the thirst — there wasn’t one pigeon in the scrum today. But this little interlude made me feel happy. These birds were practically singing “Gaudeamus igitur” as they slurped away at what must have seemed something like a granita, a frozen liquid with a delicate aftertaste of sanidine feldspar.
