CARRARA, Francesco.

Rome, per il Casaletti, 1779. Folio. XXIV pp.+ large. fold. engr. plate. Two engravings in text, one haf page. Title within frame and with an engr. vignette. A minor tear in the folding plate. Disbound, with partly preserved spine paper. Between the rivers Velino and Nera in central Italy there is the magnificent man-made waterfall, created by the ancient Romans, named Cascata delle Marmore (Marmore's Falls). In 1545 Pope Paul III ordered that a new canal should be built, which was completed in 1598. The presence of that canal however was problematic for the countryside in the valley below, as the Nera often flooded. A minor way of solving the problem was to build a bridge to regulate the water in Velino, and that mission is here given to the architect Giovanni Fontana. But already in 1787 pope Pius VI ordered the architect Andrea Vici to modify the leaps in the falls, giving the falls its present look and so resolving the majority of the problems. Today the water is divided beween the falls and an hydroelectric power plant.