The Cascatelles, Tivoli

In November 1826 the river Aniene burst its banks at Tivoli, in the hills east of Rome, and carried away houses in the oldest part of the town. Pope Gregory XVI answered with an engineering scheme. Two tunnels were cut through Monte Catillo, finished in 1835, to take the river around the town and drop it in a single waterfall more than 100 metres high. When Corot painted here in 1843, that great fall was only eight years old. This small study shows the cascatelles instead, the smaller falls that spill down the hillside below the town. One of them appears as a white streak at the left, beneath a slope of dark green scrub. Along the ridge above run walls, a square tower and a large pale building in full sun.