The Waterfall at Tivoli

When Abraham Teerlink signed this canvas in Rome in 1824, the river Aniene still plunged down right beneath the town of Tivoli, below the round Temple of Vesta on its cliff. That is the view here, with the town on its hill and, at the left, peasants picking grapes. Two years later, in 1826, the Aniene flooded and swept away houses in the oldest part of the town. In the 1830s Pope Gregory XVI had the river diverted through a tunnel cut into Monte Catillo, the hill opposite, and that created the Great Waterfall visitors see today. The temple still stands on its cliff above the gorge where the river used to fall.