The Odescalchi Aqueduct

The Odescalchi Aqueduct together with the Ferriere that we adopted, is a testimony of the past now canceled within the urban fabric of the city of Bracciano, a reality canceled even in the memory of those who live the city today: native inhabitants or new emigration, but also tourists and passers-by. The Vian high school is located right along the ancient route and almost naturally we felt the need to come out of our plexus and look for the visual and cultural traces of that monument now fragmented by collapses and new buildings . We consider The school adopts a monument project a way to sew in a single plot the memory, studies and documents of a monument that should not be forgotten. The goal we have set ourselves is “ to make it live it so as not to make it die". The history of the aqueduct begins well before its construction, more precisely in 1696, with the acquisition of the duchy of Bracciano by Livio Odescalchi, who bought it from the Duke Orsini for 386.300 scudi. Livio, in fact, saw in the territory an opportunity: to transform Bracciano into an industrial pole.. Today, the ironworks and the majestic aqueduct remain only ruins to remind us of the dream of a man who had seen in that small territory a large production center.