Piscina Mirabilis

The Piscina Mirabilis (Latin for "wondrous pool") is an Ancient Roman cistern on the Bacoli hill at the western end of the Gulf of Naples, southern Italy [1]. It ranks as one of the largest ancient cisterns built by the ancient Romans, compared to the largest Roman reservoir, the Yerebatan Sarayi (aka Basilica Cistern) in Istanbul [1]. The Piscina Mirabilis was supplied with water from the Aqua Augusta, built after 33 BC, which brought water to most of the sites around Naples [1]. The cistern was definitively out of use when the Aqua Augusta was destroyed between the 4th and 5th century AD [1]. Testament to its monumentality are the dimensions: 15 metres high, 72 metres long, and 25 metres wide [1]. The capacity is 12,600 cubic metres, amounting, in other words, to 12.6 million litres of water [1]. It was built as a kind of hypostyle hall on a quadrangular plan to obtain four rows of twelve cruciform pillars per row which divide the interior space into five long naves and thirteen courtyards [1].