ASPECTS OF THE HYDRAULIC SYSTEM: FROM THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES TO THE DOCUMENT OF THE SLAVE, AMETT
(by Andrea Mamone)

The water system which feeds the palace can be visualized as a complex network, in which the high- pressure piping feeds an enormous range of fountains. It includes the pipes for watering the garden and those for filling the cisterns of the palace: we learn from historical documents that three “external” points fed the whole system, but the real source of the water was the aqueduct from the Lagaccio.

The water system was developed in three stages, in some way connected to the evolution of the design of the garden, and to the arrangement of the fountains. We have no documents or plans which refer to the first water system for the sea garden, the sixteenth century one.

On the east axis of the garden were positioned the Fountain of the Satyr, the semi-hexagonal tank with the gargoyle, the winter fountain and the spring fountain. On the other side, symmetrically, the fountain of the Dolphins, the semi-hexagonal tank with gargoyle, the fountain of Autumn and the fountain of Summer.

Along these two axes the hydraulic system was of low-pressure piping, which took the water respectively from the Fountain of the Satyr and from the basin of the Dolphins. These were fed by means of tubing from the corner tower, which must have been built during the first phase of the creation of the garden.

During this first phase, characterized by a water system based on a single pipe, that from the Fossato, arranged into two axes, begins the transformation resulting from the construction of the Fountain of Neptune; this led to the addition of piping aligned along the central axis, the same as that of the villa and of the garden. In particular, the tubing from the Fossato was added to that of the fish-tank of the Giant, which feeds the Fountain of Neptune directly.

This new water system was simply the addition of high-pressure clay piping to a low-pressure system, probably in lead; these two systems remained distinct. If the system for feeding the Fountain of Neptune was separate from that of the other fountains, it is possible to hypothesize that there was already a system for catching the water, which just channelled all the water towards the marina.

The second water system corresponds to the second phase of transforming the garden, with the introduction of two small fountains, the fish-tanks to the east and west, arranged in accordance with an axis parallel to the villa and centred on the Fountain of Neptune. It naturally derives from the earlier one, which is documented in particular in the designs of the slave, Amett, and of Parodi.

The differences with the system of the previous phase can be assessed at the level of the complex relationship which occurs between the system of feeding and the system for taking away water. The novelty of this second water system, compared to the previous one, concerns the communication which exists between feeding tubes along the lateral axes and the principal one feeding Neptune, in the stretch of sea garden along the north-south axis, passing through the centre of the fountain.

With this water system Neptune became the point to which all the waters flowed, if we accept the hypothesis that the system had various sources. In addition, and no less important, there was a system by which it was possible to control the pressures and regulate the jets and the plays of the fountains; certainly the feeding system of the fountains was linked to the irrigation system of the garden. In this second phase of the water system, the stone channels at the sides of the wall fountains served to water the beds, but it is believed that most probably this was the survival of a mechanism belonging to the previous phase.

The third phase of the water system, perhaps linked to the last phase of the garden’s development or more probably the result of an earlier arrangement, perhaps from the late eighteenth century, offers a system which substantially matches that of the previous phase.

The change, as far as can be gathered by comparing the two designs by the slave Amett and by Parodi with the data from the archaeological study, still concerns the relationship between the piping along the central axis with the tubing along the lateral axes. In this third phase too the Fountain of Neptune remains the point at which all the water flows together. The system for catching the water remains unchanged, and is carried out with the same tubing as in the previous phase.