The inscription (1925) can be read on a wall of the cistern of the Acqua Pia Antica Marcia in the gardens of Villa Borghese (Piazzale dei Daini). The author of the text is Raffaello Santarelli.

The inscription is carved in Roman square capitals, retraced with red colouring (‘rubricated’) on a plate that is fixed over the entry door, which is located under the porch of the building.

The text recalls the arrival of the water brought to the cistern of Villa Borghese through the aqueduct built by Quintus Marcius Rex in 144 BC and restored by Pope Pius IX in 1868. Hence the name Acqua Pia Antica Marcia. The text has some features peculiar to Santarelli’s style (see the biography on Santarelli). The special royal commissioner of Rome, Filippo Cremonesi (1872–1942), is called Urbi praefectus regius (‘royal prefect of the City’), just as in the inscription in Palazzo Caffarelli on the Capitoline Hill. The title ‘prefect of the City’ evokes the office of imperial prefect, assigned by the emperor himself in the Roman empire from the very beginning with Augustus’ reign.

The cistern was designed in neo-baroque style by Raffaele de Vico (1881–1969), who won a competition organized by the municipality in 1915. Because of the war it was built only between 1922 and 1925.

On the external walls of the building eight other inscriptions (two for each side) can be read, the first one by the architect de Vico, the others by Santarelli. They present the function of the building and the history, the quality, and the aim of the Acqua Pia Antica Marcia. They read as follows: Quiescit ut refluat (‘It rests so that it can flow again’); E consule Marcia, e pontifice Pia (‘[Named] Marcia after a consul and Pia after a Pope’; in fact, Q. Marcius Rex was praetor); Restinguit sitim suaviter (‘It extinguishes thirst pleasantly’); Vetusta nomine, gratissima haustu (‘Ancient in name, most welcome as a drink’); Novo Urbis decori (‘For the renewed glory of the City’); Remotis e collibus advenit optatissima (‘It arrives, so long-desired, from remote hills’); Herbis floribusque vigor (‘Vitality for the grass and for the flowers’); Priscis Romanis novisque iucunda (‘Enjoyable for ancient and modern Romans’).

Bibliography

Anonymous. 1925. ‘Il nuovo serbatoio di Villa Umberto I’. Capitolium 1 (9): 540–43.

Cecchelli, Carlo. 1925. ‘L’artistico Serbatoio Di Villa Umberto I’. Capitolium 1 (6): 346–48.

De Vico Fallani, Massimo. 1985. Raffaele De Vico e i giardini di Roma. Florence: Sansoni, 37–41.

Ferraironi, Francesco. 1937. Iscrizioni ornamentali su edifici e monumenti di Roma con appendice sulle iscrizioni scomparse. Rome: Industria Tipografica Romana, no. 799–802.

Gawlik, Ulrike, Massimo De Vico Fallani, and Simone Quilici. 2017. Raffaele De Vico: i giardini e le architetture romane dal 1908 al 1962. Florence: Olschki, 92–94.

Nastasi, Antonino. 2019. Le iscrizioni in latino di Roma Capitale (1870-2018). Rome: Edizioni Quasar, 395–98.

Antonino Nastasi