Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Grant Heiken, Renato Funiciello, & Donatella de Rita With a foreword by Walter Veltroni, Mayor of Rome

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"This is the only book I'm aware of that fully integrates the culture and history of a city into its geographical and geological setting. Written by three experts in volcanology and in the geology, culture, and history of Rome, the book has much to offer both the general public and professional city planners. The field trips featured provide guidelines that can be effectively applied to other urban settings, and the book provides good sources for further reading and research."--Ian MacGregor, retired Director, Earth Science Division of the National Science Foundation

"It is most fitting that this book, the first of its kind, should be published on Rome, the most fascinating, ancient--but currently thriving--city in the world. The Seven Hills of Rome covers more history and geology than any other travel book I have read, and it draws readers in by helping them understand how the benefits of geographical structure play out in everyday life; for example, the authors demonstrate that the golden wines from the Alban Hills are the result of vineyards located on the tuff plateaus or in crater bottoms. Throughout the book, the reader feels part of a very personal journey through the countryside."--Jill Andrews, California Institute of Technology

"The greatest virtue of The Seven Hills of Rome is that it ties the city's human history to its natural history. Now nonspecialists can fully appreciate the extent to which Rome's destiny, its character, even its very appearance, were founded on its unique geological circumstances."--Rabun Taylor, Harvard University

"Part guidebook, part scholarly resource, all fascinating story, The Seven Hills of Rome weaves together the complex geology and history of Rome's unique locale. The book is throughout a revelation--one that not only illuminates the study of the city's past, but nurtures an appreciation of its present and a concern for its future."--Susan E. Alcock, University of Michigan

"This book is not a typical geological guidebook: it tackles a geology that is largely hidden in an area that has been urban for almost three millennia. As such it is great fun--a treasure hunt in which the reader is invited to piece together the evolution of Rome as part of the Adrian microplate as well as of Rome the city. From temples and quarries to floods, earthquakes and eruptions, all is here. Well researched and never dull, this book offers a brand new insight into an ancient city."--Ruth Siddall, University College, London

"The authors use their expertise to explain how the landscape and natural resources of the region around Rome made it an inviting place for human habitation, and served as inspirations for Romans' achievements in civil engineering, architecture, and construction. The walking tours featured in the book constitute an insider's travel guide, and the chapters on the seven hills are highly evocative and will please the armchair traveler."--Gail Mahood, Stanford University

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The Seven Hills of Rome

Princeton University Press

Chapter One

At early midnight, the piazza was a solitude; and it was a delight to behold this untamable water, sporting by itself in the moonshine. -NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, The Marble Faun

THE MONUMENTAL Trevi Fountain in central Rome symbolizes the relationship between the city and its geologic underpinnings. The stone from which sculptors created this work of art, the clean water from springs in the Apennines and volcanic fields near the city-transported by the famous Roman aqueducts-and the stones underfoot are all products of Rome's geologic heritage.

Construction of the fountain began in 1732, following a design by Nicola Salvi and using stone from the region. Travertine, a sedimentary spring deposit from quarries near Tivoli, and marble, a metamorphic rock from Carrara, in northern Italy, were used for the figures. The plaza is paved with small blocks of lava from flows along the Appian Way. For more than two millennia, Rome's fountains have provided neighborhoods with clear, refreshing water from springs in the Apennines, the Alban Hills, and the Sabatini region: a precious resource transported through aqueducts that were built during the Roman era and restored by the popes beginning in the 16th century.

This is your first visit to the Eternal City of Rome and, with guidebook and map, you plunge into its historic center. The goal is the Trevi Fountain, one of Italy's most famous landmarks. The trek can be daunting. Myriad small piazzas are connected with narrow streets, twisting this way and that, cars and scooters crowd the pavement, and the modern Roman phalanx-a tour group-impedes your progress. Buildings of all shapes and vintages block your horizon, scaffolding masks the architectural lines of famous landmarks, and resurfacing hides the ancient streets, making it impossible to view the city's past, hidden under its many debris layers.

During a brief visit, how do you get a grip on the geographic and temporal components of Rome, where a remarkable combination of geologic setting, environment, and history has produced a city that attracts millions of visitors every year? One fascinating approach is to imagine that you are able to rise above the Trevi Fountain, pausing at different elevations above the city so you can see Rome through a series of windows: first, just 30 meters, then 300 meters, then 3, 30, 300, and 3,000 kilometers on a side. Examining the setting of Rome from these six perspectives allows us to view the interactions between geologic setting, urban development, natural disasters, and humans' continuing struggle to modify and control the environment

THE 30-METER WINDOW

Approximately 30 meters (98 feet) wide, the Trevi Fountain dominates its small piazza and is one of Rome's most easily recognized landmarks. Most movies filmed in Rome include the requisite scene at (or in) the fountain. Tour leaders and books remark on its ornate sculptures and the way that both the figures and the water emerge from the rock. The piazza actually is a small area, but even at this 30-meter scale, we can learn quite a bit about the importance of geologic setting in the history of Rome and its Empire.

To begin with, why is such a large fountain located in such a claustrophobic space? Seeing it for the first time, visitors are frequently amazed that such an astounding monument is seemingly tucked into a corner of a crowded city. It's important to remember that, despite their sometime glorious appearances, Roman fountains for 2,400 years served the practical purpose of providing water for the populace. A neighborhood fountain supplied this precious fluid for drinking, cooking, cleaning, and flushing public toilets. During the Republican period and the Imperial dynasties, Rome had an abundant supply of clean water from several sources, thanks to its geologic setting and extraordinary engineering. The water infrastructure was later rebuilt and restored under the popes. The Trevi Fountain, among others, was and still is supplied by the Vergine aqueduct (Aqua Virgo), which brought water from springs at Salone, 16 kilometers (10 miles) east of central Rome, via a circuitous route that enters the city from the north. Inaugurated in 19 B.C., the aqueduct was damaged during the siege of Rome by the Ostrogoths in A.D. 537-38 and was reconstructed near the end of the 15th century. Most of the Vergine aqueduct is underground and passes immediately under the Piazza Trevi. Three streets converge at this fountain, so it is possible that its name may have derived from tre vie (three streets).

The first fountain at Trevi was a utilitarian model, built for Pope Nicholas V in 1453 and derided as the "village well." Bernini had this fountain destroyed in anticipation of erecting one of his own design. In fact, his design was not used, but his influence resulted in the fountain being moved from the south to the north side of the piazza, its present location. After an intense competition between sculptors in 1730, the design of Nicola Salvi was selected. Construction of the new fountain took thirty years, between 1732 and 1762, using two architects, ten sculptors, and many assistants. The fountain's travertine base emulates nature, with rough stones, cascades, crevices, grottoes, and carved representations of thirty plant species. The figures, including Oceanus (Neptune) and the Tritons, are carved in Carrara marble, one of the finest natural materials used by the greatest sculptors.

Although the fountain once supplied fresh water to the neighborhood, the flowing cascades are now recirculated and are no longer potable. If you're thirsty, however, fontanelle (small water fountains) along the shallow steps leading down to the fountain provide clear, cool, drinkable water.

Tired? The Trevi's steps are an excellent place to sit for a while and look around. The rounded paving stones below your feet are sanpietrini, blocks cut from lava that flowed from one of the volcanoes of the Alban Hills to the edge of what are now Rome's city limits. These stones are the same type Imperial Rome laid down for heavily traveled roads throughout its empire.

Although you can't see it, beneath the sanpietrini there is plentiful evidence of both anthropogenic (human-related) and geologic events. Immediately below is a 5- to 10-meter-thick (16- to 30-foot) layer of debris left by man's activities; it is mostly within these debris layers that archeologists find clues to the city's complex history. Below the debris is a 60-meter-deep (197-foot) channel cut by the Tiber River as it flowed into a sea much lower than today's Tyrrhenian Sea. Sea level has since risen during the latest warm cycle of the Earth's atmosphere, and the Tiber valley has been subsequently filled in with river sands, gravel, and mud. Beneath this alluvium is a thick sequence of fossiliferous sandstone and mudstone layers that were deposited in an ancient seabed 2 to 3 million years ago.

We could go still deeper, but we'll stop here, let you catch your breath, then return to street level and begin our rise above the Trevi Fountain's neighborhood.

More about the Stone Used in the Trevi Fountain Peter Rockwell, an American sculptor living in Rome, is an expert on the history of stone carving. When he analyzed the...