In this pioneering study of the water infrastructure of Renaissance Rome, urban historian Katherine Rinne offers a new understanding of how technological and scientific developments in aqueduct and fountain architecture helped turn a medieval backwater into the preeminent city of early modern Europe. Supported by the author’s extensive topographical research, this book presents a unified vision of the city that links improvements to public and private water systems with political, religious, and social change. Between 1560 and 1630, in a spectacular burst of urban renewal, Rome’s religious and civil authorities sponsored the construction of aqueducts, private and public fountains for drinking, washing, and industry, and the magnificent ceremonial fountains that are Rome’s glory. Tying together the technological, sociopolitical, and artistic questions that faced the designers during an age of turmoil in which the Catholic Church found its authority threatened and the infrastructure of the city was in a state of decay, Rinne shows how these public works projects transformed Rome in a successful marriage of innovative engineering and strategic urban planning.

Publisher description

Kleijn, G. de The Water Supply of Ancient Rome. City Area, Water, and Population. 2001 The Aqua Appia (312 BC) was the first of the eleven aqueducts leading to Rome to be built in antiquity. Time and again, the volume of water brought into the city was increased through the construction of new aqueducts. Rome’s population and the extent of its built-up area also changed over time. This study examines how data derived from our knowledge of the urban water supply in antiquity may help answering questions about the urban social fabric and topography. DMAHA 22 (2001), 365 p. Cloth. - 68.00 EURO, ISBN: 9050632688

Engaging study of key issues in Roman water regulation from legal and environmental history, both ancient and modern

This is the first urban history of Rome to span its entire three-thousand-year history. It examines the processes by which Rome's leaders have shaped its urban fabric by organizing space, planning infrastructure, designing ritual, controlling populations, and exploiting Rome's standing as a seat of global power and a religious capital.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE KANSAS CITY STAR From Anthony Everitt, the bestselling author of acclaimed biographies of Cicero, Augustus, and Hadrian, comes a riveting, magisterial account of Rome and its remarkable ascent from an obscure agrarian backwater to the greatest empire the world has ever known. Emerging as a market town from a cluster of hill villages in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C., Rome grew to become the ancient world’s preeminent power. Everitt fashions the story of Rome’s rise to glory into an erudite page-turner filled with lasting lessons for our time. He chronicles the clash between patricians and plebeians that defined the politics of the Republic. He shows how Rome’s shrewd strategy of offering citizenship to her defeated subjects was instrumental in expanding the reach of her burgeoning empire. And he outlines the corrosion of constitutional norms that accompanied Rome’s imperial expansion, as old habits of political compromise gave way, leading to violence and civil war. In the end, unimaginable wealth and power corrupted the traditional virtues of the Republic, and Rome was left triumphant everywhere except within its own borders. Everitt paints indelible portraits of the great Romans—and non-Romans—who left their mark on the world out of which the mighty empire grew: Cincinnatus, Rome’s George Washington, the very model of the patrician warrior/aristocrat; the brilliant general Scipio Africanus, who turned back a challenge from the Carthaginian legend Hannibal; and Alexander the Great, the invincible Macedonian conqueror who became a role model for generations of would-be Roman rulers. Here also are the intellectual and philosophical leaders whose observations on the art of government and “the good life” have inspired every Western power from antiquity to the present: Cato the Elder, the famously incorruptible statesman who spoke out against the decadence of his times, and Cicero, the consummate orator whose championing of republican institutions put him on a collision course with Julius Caesar and whose writings on justice and liberty continue to inform our political discourse today. Rome’s decline and fall have long fascinated historians, but the story of how the empire was won is every bit as compelling. With The Rise of Rome, one of our most revered chroniclers of the ancient world tells that tale in a way that will galvanize, inform, and enlighten modern readers. Praise for The Rise of Rome “Fascinating history and a great read.”—Chicago Sun-Times “An engrossing history of a relentlessly pugnacious city’s 500-year rise to empire.”—Kirkus Reviews “Rome’s history abounds with remarkable figures. . . . Everitt writes for the informed and the uninformed general reader alike, in a brisk, conversational style, with a modern attitude of skepticism and realism.”—The Dallas Morning News “[A] lively and readable account . . . Roman history has an uncanny ability to resonate with contemporary events.”—Maclean’s “Elegant, swift and faultless as an introduction to his subject.”—The Spectator “[An] engaging work that will captivate and inform from beginning to end.”—Booklist