How a hidden canal system could lead to a more sustainable future
Looking beneath the beautiful medieval city of red bricks, Bologna “La Rossa,” you will find a hidden subterranean world filled with history, and a glimpse into the future. We learned about this city’s underground canals, tunnels and cisterns — and realized how Bologna’s hidden canal system is crucial to the city’s buried history, and can open the gates to a more sustainable future.
This ancient university city boasts a fascinating and relatively little-known history beneath its surface. Its intricate network of underground canals dates back to the Roman Empire, when the city was known as “Bononia.” The Romans recognized the importance of water management, and constructed elaborate networks of aqueducts, harnessing their engineering prowess to allow water from nearby mountains and the Po, Reno and Savena rivers to flow through the city, providing forms of mechanical power and transportation.
Along with Bologna’s canals, subterranean tunnels were dug, for protection and storage purposes. During World War II, these tunnels allowed the city’s inhabitants to hide safely underground, evading sieges when 50 percent of the city was bombed. Now efforts are being made to preserve and restore Bologna’s subterranean world, particularly by the organization Canali Di Bologna (“Canals of Bologna”), made up of passionate volunteers who aim for environmental harmony.
When canals gave Bologna life
Canali Di Bologna Director Andrea Bolognessi, who focuses on hydrogeological safety and environmental quality, explained how hydrology plays a vital role in Bologna’s underground canals. Due to the city’s location between the Apennine Mountains and the Po River, the canals provide the city with an abundance of water resources. Hydraulics, the system that deals with the behavior of liquids in motion, became a fundamental factor in the design and construction of Bologna’s canals. The early Romans wanted to ensure a steady flow of water to the city via networks of well-regulated canals. This technology allowed for a more effective control of water, in collaboration with a complex system of dams, locks, gates and cisterns. This canal system later allowed Bologna to become one of the main commercial trade centers in Europe in the Middle Ages (13th to 15th centuries), particularly in powering mills to grind flour.
Bolognessi and Chiara Soldati, the teaching coordinator of Canali di Bologna, led us on a private tour of the operating machinery of the canals, providing a better understanding of how this infrastructure is vital to the city. The canals were developed to divert rainwater from the city’s streets, to help mitigate the risk of flooding. Flooding has historically been a danger (which continues to grow with increased global warming), so it was important to design a system to manage water and safeguard urban development to prevent city streets from bursting.
The incorporation of “grids” or frameworks of grates helped keep intruders from using the canals to invade the city during its many periods of conflict and war.
Powering the silk and paper industries
Jacopo Ibello, author of Guida al Turismo Industriale (“Guide to Industrial Tourism”) wrote that, in the 16th through 19th centuries, Bologna’s canals powered silk, paper and leather factories, and provided transportation routes to carry these goods to other parts of Italy and Europe. But by the 1950s and 1960s, when Bologna was no longer a major manufacturing city, its canals were paved over to make room for more buildings, streets and plazas. In the 1960s, it was still possible to travel via canal from Bologna to Venice — but today there is barely a trace left of these ancient waterways. While you can catch glimpses of them behind some buildings, they are hidden underground, and unknown to most people who walk above them. Amazed by their long history and durability, Bolognessi compared the canals to the city’s more famous treasures – its medieval towers.
“These canals should be considered Bologna’s third tower!” he exclaimed.
Amici delle Acque (Friends of the Waters) has worked since 1998 to preserve Bologna’s canals and tunnels. The group’s five members have devoted years of their lives and 15,000 euros of their own money to cleaning up 30 tons of debris and garbage from the tunnels, restoring them and offering occasional tours and public events inside. To save time and maximize efficiency, volunteers slept and ate within the tunnels while they worked.
Amici Vice President and Secretary Massimo Brunelli and his partner Jacopo Ibello told us that after the war the tunnels were forgotten. They filled with debris, mold and bats. Amici delle Acque members spent six years clearing out a bomb shelter known as Rifugio Antiaereo Vittorio Putti (Victor Putti Anti-Air Refuge). The shelter, which accommodated up to 700 people, also served as a makeshift emergency hospital during the war. There was only one toilet and one water spigot to serve all those people, who were forced to huddle in virtual darkness during air raids.
The Valverde Cistern is a subterranean water system created in 1563 with the purpose of storing water to supply some of Bologna’s most famous landmarks, the Neptune’s Fountain and the Old Fountain, both located in the city’s central Piazza Maggiore. Once referred to as “the underground hand of a man,” as its center pool was the palm, and its cisternae, or smaller connecting cisterns were its fingers, it was abandoned in 1881 after the restoration of an aqueduct made the cistern to obsolete.
But this unused part of the underground was put back into use during World War II as a bomb shelter and refuge. The letter ‘R’ painted on the walls for rifugiato (refuge) remains, and the candle smoke traces are still visible in the cistern today.
The underground cistern is cleaned out every fall. Flooding and infrastructure damage can arise from poor maintenance.
Less hidden than forgotten
Bologna’s canals are not actually “hidden;” they are simply forgotten. Bologna was once very much like Venice, and was even referred to as “Little Venice,” with canals flowing throughout the red-bricked streets of the city, spanned by many bridges. As the city expanded, the canals were covered over, and for many generations they disappeared from the memories of most Bolognese. But the importance of the canals never faded, and their operations never ceased. What many people don’t realize is that Bologna’s underground canal system continues to save the city from catastrophic flooding (they are a major reason Bologna’s city center was largely saved from the major 2023 regional floods). Bringing back the enthusiasm that once surrounded these waterways is only “the tip of the iceberg,” as Brunelli put it.
Sadly, this beauty is hidden away from public eye. Throughout time, the canals have provided opportunities for manufacturing, transportation and protection to the residents of Bologna while also preventing environmental damage arising as a result of climate change.
As people learn about the history under their feet, and the gallons of flowing water beneath them, we hope they’ll be more willing to prevent Bologna’s underground heritage from disappearing.
References
“Bologna, City of Water and Silk: Museum of Industrial Heritage: Iperbole.” Bologna, City of Water and Silk | Museum of Industrial Heritage | Iperbole, www.museibologna.it/patrimonioindustrialeen/galleria_immagini/67962. Accessed June 2023.
Canali & Aposa: Foto-Percorso Nella Bologna Scomparsa. Costa, 2001.
“Canali Di Bologna.” Canali Di Bologna – Consorzi Dei Canali Di Reno e Di Savena, www.canalidibologna.it/en/index.php. Accessed June 2023.
“Chi Siamo.” Amici Delle Acque, www.amicidelleacque.org/chi-siamo/. Accessed June 2023.
“Homepage.” Fondazione Del Monte Di Bologna e Ravenna, 27 Apr. 2023, www.fondazionedelmonte.it/.
Ibello, Jacopo. Guida Al Turismo Industriale. Morellini, 2020.
“Manifattura Delle Arti.” Manifattura Delle Arti – Bologna Welcome, www.bolognawelcome.com/it/luoghi/archeologia-industriale/manifattura-delle-arti. Accessed June 2023.
Opificio Delle Acque, www.opificiodelleacque.it/. Accessed June 2023.
Zanotti, Angelo. Il Sistema Delle Acque a Bologna Dal 13. al 19. Secolo. Compositori, 2000.
