This proposal is to conduct research of hydraulic technology, infrastructure and urbanization in Rome from 1562-1762. During this time Rome was transformed from a medieval city into a baroque one. Influential citizens pursued policies to restore ancient aqueducts and build new fountains, using water infrastructure as a tool to return Rome to its antique grandeur, to solidify papal prestige, to shift existing settlement patterns, and to improve public health. Three gravity-flow aqueducts served baroque Rome: the Acqua Vergine (1562-70), Felice (1585-87) and Paola (1607-12). Each tapped ancient sources and restored ancient routes. During this period the number of public fountains grew from a few in 1562 to over 200 in 1762 when the Trevi Fountain was completed. The new hydraulic infrastructure, which will be discussed in detail, helped to transform the urban landscape, as they became the foci of many public spaces. The PI has already completed a survey of the hydraulic features of Rome. She now plans to write a social and cultural history of hydraulic engineering and urbanization. It will investigate construction projects including aqueducts, fountains, conduits, sewers, and bridges as integrated elements of a single hydraulic infrastructure system. Although often hidden from view, this infrastructure propelled dynamic changes in the urban landscape of Rome as engineers, architects and supervisors increased their understanding of hydraulic technology, geology, and the physical properties of water. Intellectual Merit: This study will build on existing scholarship, including that of the PI, and will use archival sources in Rome. A new physical order was created through an integrated water system of fountains, aqueducts, conduits and sewers. This existed at the scale of the neighborhood and the city, as water infrastructure provided an armature to organize and control public space, consolidate papal authority, and implement social change, often under the guise of public health reforms and urban design improvements. This study will use water technology and infrastructure as a framework to explore the social, cultural and political context of urbanization and the results will be useful for hydraulic history and urban studies in general. Broader Impacts: Rome is one of the most widely studied of all cities and students and scholars in many disciplines use it as a kind of urban laboratory. This original book will become an important addition to the literature of Rome, infrastructure theory, the history of hydraulics, and the history of urbanization. In addition to the proposed book, pertinent research from this study will support completion of an interactive cartographic archive of the hydraulic history of Rome, the Waters of the City of Rome.. Conceived and created by the PI, this interdisciplinary web project presents a growing body of original research and basic reference works on the water infrastructure, urbanism and topography of Rome. Regularly updated and augmented the web site, which currently covers the period through the Imperial period, will continue to grow in importance as new material, such as that derived from this study, is added. Both the web site and the planned book will be useful to students and researchers from high school to post-doctoral level. The materials produced by this research will encourage thinking about the relationships of hydraulic systems, related physical structures, and the political and social structures in which they are developed.
