The Aqueduct of Vanvitelli is easy to miss if a visit to Caserta focuses only on the palace façade and its fountains. Much of this eighteenth-century waterway runs underground, yet it was essential to the royal estate: it supplied the palace, the cascading water of the park and productive sites along its route. The aqueduct, known in Italian as the Acquedotto Carolino, also links Caserta’s architecture to the silk works of San Leucio and to a wider Bourbon programme of infrastructure.
Charles of Bourbon commissioned architect Luigi Vanvitelli to design a dependable water supply for the new Royal Palace of Caserta and its planned gardens. Construction began in 1753. The official palace account describes a route of about 38 kilometres, starting at the Fizzo springs on the slopes of Mount Taburno in the territory of Bucciano and Airola. The source lies at roughly 243 metres above sea level; the channel then carries water toward the royal park and the cascade that begins its long sequence of basins and fountains.
