On 7 August, 1921, in the presence of numerous dignitaries, the Vallocchia urban subsidiary aqueduct is inaugurated, a necessary intervention to exploit new sources of supply to bring new water to the city and meet the area’s urging water needs.

The 11 August 1921 issue of Il Messaggero says the ceremony took place in solemn form. Photographs of the time, kept in the photo library of the City, show us a long line of people in dignified poses gathering at the Cortaccione ditch to witness the introduction of the ‘new, healthy water from the Vallocchia springs […] into the Cortaccione pipeline‘.

Civil and military authorities, various dignitaries and representatives of the press “under the guidance of the municipal engineer, Mr Zigari, who directed the work very well […] entered the long tunnel with fantastic little lights to witness the christening of the new water […] When the traditional champagna [sic] bottle was broken, the new water, with a flow rate of fourteen litres per second, appeared sparkling to the applause of those present“.

The interventions of the new Vallocchia aqueduct were completed almost three decades after the entry into operation of the modern urban aqueduct that in 1894 – still drawing from the sources of Cortaccione but through a new pressure system and new infrastructure – replaced the old pipes that from Fosso di Cortaccione to the north and from Patrico to the south had led water into the city over the centuries through the Ponte delle Torri.

A few years after the Vallocchia works, other works between the 1920s and 1930s brought new water to Spoleto, this time from the Montefiorello springs. In the 1970s, given the continuing need for water in an expanding territory, the Argentina aqueduct was built.

The history of the Spoleto aqueduct – from the remote chapters dating to the Roman period, to the great 19th-century infrastructure works – is a very important stage in the city’s history that deserves a further deepening in the “Long Ago in Spoleto” column.

NEWS ARCHIVES

• Annibale della Genga and Porta San Gregorio | 5 March 2021
• Lawrence Ferlinghetti at the Festival Of Two Worlds | 26 February 2021
• August 1904. From a congress in Spoleto, the Federazione Nazionale delle Pubbliche Assistenze is born | 19 February 2021
• The Spoleto Carnival in posters from the 19th and 20th centuries, and in photos from the 1930s | 12 February 2021
• The Vocational School of Arts and Crafts | 8 February 2021
• December 1897: the Teatro Caio Melisso hosts the “Cinematograph” | 29 January 2021
• July 1904: first public phone booth in Spoleto | 15 January 2021
• Roman relics in the gardens of Spoleto | 8 January 2021
• Olive oil exhibition in 1930 | 18 December 2020
• The Town Hall in 1913 | 4 December 2020
• 1865: The third leg of the works on the Traversa Interna begins | 27 November 2020
• The birth of the Cotton Mill | 20 November 2020
• Racewalkers at the Giro della Rocca prepare themselves for the London Olympic Games: June, 1948 | 13 November 2020
• Teatro Nuovo: 10-11 September 1864 | 6 November 2020
• Images, August 1948. Teatro Nuovo, Spoleto, second edition of the competition for young opera singers | 30 October 2020
• The 1948 Mille Miglia in Spoleto. That time when Tazio Nuvolari… | 16 October 2020
• Beniamino Gigli in Spoleto in September, 1932 and August,1939 | 9 October 2020
• The Casina dell’Ippocastano | 2 October 2020
• Catalogue of public posters as documents of city chronicles | 25 September 2020
• 27 May 1948. When Gino Bartali crossed the finish line in Spoleto | 18 September 2020
• The Festival Of Two Worlds’ Yearbooks from 1975 to 1979 | 11 September 2020
• The 1967 Festival Of Two Worlds’ Yearbook | 26 August 2020
• The Festival Of Two Worlds’ Yearbooks #2 | 21 August 2020
• The Festival Of Two Worlds’ Yearbooks | 19 August 2020
• 1947-48: Motorcycling in Spoleto | 14 August 2020
• When the Spoleto soccer team’s name was Virtus | 7 August 2020
• Ads and commercials in 1910 Spoleto | 24 July 2020
• The Spoleto City Museum | 17 July 2020
• Restoration works at the Teatro Caio Melisso | 10 July 2020
• Folk feasts’ posters in early XXth-century Spoleto | 3 July 2020
• “Urban VIII on his way to Rome”: or the odd story of the Spoletan Bernini | 26 June 2020
• The ex Spoleto-Norcia Railway: from the first project to its opening | 19 June 2020
• Spoleto Tourist Guidebooks #3 | 12 June 2020
• Christo’s Art at the Festival of Two Worlds | 5 June 2020
• Raffaele Canè – Pictures | 29 May 2020
• Spoleto Tourist Guidebooks #2 | 22 May 2020
• Spoleto Tourist Guidebooks | 15 May 2020
• Pietro Mascagni: the concert at the Teatro Nuovo | 8 May 2020
• The cable car Spoleto-Monteluco | 1 May 2020
• Two days of aviation in Spoleto | 24 April 2020