Campo Barbarico and Tor Fiscale

Between the 3th and the 4th mile of Via Latina, into Tor Fiscale Park, the two old aqueducts Claudio and Marcio crossed each others twice in the short distance of 300 metros making a big field of two hectares size.

This field was named “Campo Barbarico” after the tragic war against Goths, in 535 a.C., which brought Rome to defeat and the inhabitants of the city to leave for the countryside because the aqueducts were cutted.

The Goths settled in “Campo Barbarico” for 15 years before taking Rome.

Effectively, the field had a natural tendency to be used as a fortification, from where was really easy to control the city during the sieges offering a perfect visual control of the two big Roman roads, via Latina and via Appia, both of them visible from Campo Barbarico’s area which is a little bit uphill respect them.

What we can see, nowadays, are the rests of Torre del Fiscale, the 30 mt high medieval tower builded in the intersection between aqueducts Claudio and Marcio, part of 12 medieval control towers builted around the city, the well preserved Acquedotto Felice and the rests of Acquedotto Claudio.

Acquedotto Felice was builted between 1585 and 1587 by Matteo Bortolani and especially by Giovanni Fontana (who had to correct design errors fellow), during the pontificate of Pope Sixtus V (Felice Peretti, from which the name of the aqueduct) , reusing the springs of the Aqua Alexandrina and others of the area.

It was for water supply zones of the Viminale and Quirinale hills, but probably the primary intention was to supply water to the papal villa that stretched on both hills.

The conduit ended with much-criticized and discussed Fontana of Moses, visible today in Piazza San Bernardo.

Tor Fiscale is now a really well preserved piece of history, that you can admire walking through the park dedicated, which is called Parco di Tor Fiscale, and is only 300 meters distance from Martini Bed.

The park offers a bike rent (open only on Sunday, you can ask at Martini Bed for renting a bicycle in the area), a bar/restaurant and a info point.

Recently, in the same area, an ancient roman villa has been discovered, during the works for the enlargement of the railway Roma-Ciampino.

While walking along the aqueduct you will see the rest of poor houses attached on it. The area was a slum after second world war and many poor people from south of Italy moved here and builted houses using the aqueduct as a wall.

Last curiosity about Tor Fiscale Park, there is a tunnel in the park which is usually closed and open only in few occasions. The tunnel is the access to a huge underground area which was a cave. The curiosity about the tunnels area is that it was used to grow mushrooms making Rome the biggest mushrooms growing area of Italy from the second world war to 20 years ago.

2017-06-12T11:01:40+00:00 30th March, 2016|Categories: Ancient Rome, Go green!, Quadraro and suburb areas|Tags: , , |