piscina mirabilis (12. 250)

Via Messy Nessy Chic (not attributing the source as it’s Faebook—sorry, no thanks) we are turned toward the “wonderous pool,” an ancient cistern in the Gulf of Naples, given its epithet by the poet Petrarch (previously) during a visit in the fourteenth century. Built under the order of Octavian to provide water to the naval fleet of the port of Misenum (Miseno in Bacoli). Engineered as a cathedral and hewn out of tufa, the monumental reservoir held some twelve million litres of potable water, five Olympic sized swimming pools. Exploration of the underground chambers reveals Tyndall scattering due to the incoming light interacting with the fine suspension of moisture or other filters to propagate blue hues further, ultimately illuminating how the chemical elements express themselves chromatically. Private property but accessible to the public, restoration of the cistern has been carried out from 1926 to the present day.