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In Venice, if we look at the centre of every campo, courtyard or cloister, we will probably see an ornamental well-head (vera da pozzo)
Mostly carved out of marble or Istrian stone, well-heads cover a shaft leading to an underground cistern where rainwater was once collected and filtered
In 1858, there were over 6500 well-heads in the city
For centuries, Venetian wells were the only means of ensuring fresh water
Venice’s underground does not have easy-to-reach water tables, and rainwater was the only local source of drinking water
In times of exceptionally long droughts, the Venetians brought over fresh water in ships from mainland rivers and springs
The wells, no longer in use, had remained the city’s only source of fresh water until June 23rd 1884
when Venice’s first aqueduct opened, conveying fresh water from the mainland
To mark this event, a fountain jetting water into the air as high as 22 metres was built in the middle of Piazza San Marco!
The well-heads became a work of art in its own right
Until quite recently, in the centre of what is now the reading room of the Marciana Library, there was the monumental well designed by Jacopo Sansovino
This place was once the courtyard of the Zecca, the mint of the Republic of Venice
When, in 1904, the Zecca was transferred, the courtyard was covered and transformed into a reading room
The removed well-head was subsequently (1914) placed in the courtyard of Ca’ Pesaro, which now houses both the International Gallery of Modern Art and the Museum of Oriental Art
A rich series of wells, some of which are very ancient, can be admired in the Archaeological Museum and the Natural History Museum of Venice
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