Water to Rome’s Trevi Fountain is cut off

Water supplying Rome’s famous Trevi Fountain was cut off when a builder across town damaged a 2,000-year-old pipe, the local water company said Wednesday.

Water had been flowing into central Rome through the “aqueduct of the virgin” since 19 BC, but it mysteriously dried up this month, cutting supplies to several fountains, including the Baroque masterpiece Trevi.

A search using a waterborne video camera through the ancient pipe tracked the blockage to a house in the high-end Parioli neighborhood on the other side of the Villa Borghese park, where builders were making a private underground garage.

A spokesman for the water company said the builder had broken the pipe, then tried to mend it with concrete, but instead had filled it in. “We’re undergoing technical checks and reckon it will take a couple of months to repair,” he said.

Tourists at Trevi did not notice the damage as the fountain was on recycle mode rather than drawing water from the pipe. But many smaller Rome fountains spluttered to a halt, and the Trevi Fountain itself will soon need to have its water replaced.

While the water company works on repairing the pipe it will divert water from another, younger pipe, the “aqueduct of Paul,” which has been bringing water to Rome from a lake north of the city since 2 AD.