Piscina Mirabilis
The Piscina Mirabilis (
The adjective Mirabilis was given by the 14th c. Tuscan poet Francesco Petrarca on one of his visits.[4][5]
History
The Piscina Mirabilis was built under
The Piscina Mirabilis was supplied with water from the Aqua Augusta, built after 33 BC, which brought water to most of the sites around Naples.
A row of twelve small chambers with barrel vaults were added on the north-eastern side in the late 1st to early 2nd century to increase the usable capacity[7] and constructed in opus mixtum and opus vittatum. In one of them is an opus signinum floor with labyrinth-shaped mosaic tesserae and a central white inlaid panel with limestone polychrome tiles, which seems to date to a more ancient phase.[6]
The cistern was definitively out of use when the Aqua Augusta was destroyed between the 4th and 5th century AD.[3][8]
Structure
Testament to its monumentality are the dimensions: 15 metres (49 ft) high, 72 metres (236 ft) long, and 25 metres (82 ft) wide. The capacity is 12,600 cubic metres (440,000 cu ft),
It was built as a kind of
The piscina had two entrances (AA), a staircase supported by three arches
The walls and pillars of the pool are faced in opus reticulatum, with recourse to bricks for the walls and to tufelli [10] for the pillars. A usual, the walls are waterproofed with opus insigninum (cocciopesto in Italian), smoothing the corners through kerbs placed at their bases.
Water was pumped out of the cistern using machines placed on the roof terrace of the cistern, which were extended in the 1st century AD by adding a series of 12 supporting barrel-vaulted rooms on the north-west side.[9]
Restoration
The first work documented[
In 2007 the roof terrace was consolidated and waterproofed.[2]
Access
The ancient cistern is in private hands but is open to the public.
See also
Further reading
- Paoli, Paolo Antonio. (1768). Antiquitatum Puteolis Cumis Baiis Existentium Reliquiae. Avanzi delle antichità esistenti a Pozzuoli, Cuma e Baja. Napoli: [s.n.], Anno A.C.N.MDCCLXVIII (with full book scan available at German Archaeological Institute (iDAI) ), a.o. texts related to Expl. Fol. 34 & Tab. LXI[11]
- De Feo, Giovanni & De Gisi, Sabino & Malvano, Carmela & De Biase, O. (2010). The Greatest Water Reservoirs in the Ancient Roman World and the “Piscina Mirabilis” in Misenum. Water Science & Technology: Water Supply. vol. 10, issue 3, pp 350–358. Publication by IWA Publishing, 2010.
- Lorenz, Wayne F.; Libertini, Giacinto; Miccio, Bruno; Leone, Nino & De Feo, Giovanni (2016). "Prominent features of the Augustan aqueduct in the Naples bay area" (PDF article). 4th IWA International Symposium on Water and Wastewater Technologies in Ancient Civilizations, Coimbra, Portugal (via researchgate.net)
- Ohlig, Christoph P. J. (2007). Antike Zisternen [Ancient cisterns] (in German). Books On Demand GmbH. ISBN 978-3-8334-4225-4
References
- ^ a b "The Piscina mirabilis". Naples: Life, Death, and Miracles. Archived from the original on 25 May 2017. Retrieved 7 June 2017.
- ^ a b c Cucco, Mauro (11 February 2023). "Piscina Mirabile". bacoli.it (in Italian). Retrieved 2023-03-26.
- ^ a b c "Piscina Mirabilis - Bacoli". www.piscinamirabilisbacoli.it. Retrieved 2023-03-25.
- ^ a b Lucio (2017-07-20). "Piscina Mirabilis, perla archeologica di Bacoli". Napoli Turistica (in Italian). Retrieved 2023-03-26.
- ^ "La Cattedrale dell'Acqua: alla scoperta della Piscina Mirabilis -". Meravigliosa Campania tour e gite scolastiche | turismo scolastico | (in Italian). 2023-01-12. Retrieved 2023-03-26.
- ^ ISSN 1606-9749.
- ^ a b c "Piscina Mirabilis - Miseno". www.cir.campania.beniculturali.it (in Italian). Archived from the original on 7 March 2016.
- ^ Keenan-Jones, Duncan (2010). "The Aqua Augusta and control of water resources in the Bay of Naples". Australasian Society for Classical Studies Conference 31, Perth, Australia 2010: 15 – via www.academia.edu.
- ^ IWA Publishing, 2010.
- ISBN 978-88-7062-982-8.
- ^ Paoli, Paolo Antonio (1768). "Remains of the Antiquities Existing in Puteoli, Cumae, and Baiae (translated)". Pdf available at the Library of Congress (USA) (in Italian and Latin). Naples. Retrieved 2023-04-03.