Well

This page contains information about a typical Venetian well. 

For a list of wells, see Wells.

A well is a water system built by Venetians to collect and filter rain to be stored as freshwater.

Diagram of a typical cistern below a wellhead.

Structure

A typical well has an underground cistern, a well shaft, drains and a layer of fine river sand between the cistern and the pavement.

Well Shaft

The well shaft is the cylindrical hole extending down from the wellhead into the cistern. Water collected at the bottom of the well shaft once it was filtered and the citizens would retrieve this filtered water from the wellshaft through the wellhead at the top. The shaft was built of semi-porrous bricks, called pozzali, that would filter water as it made its way into the shaft.

Cistern

The cistern is the large bowl shaped tank that holds the water while it is being filtered. It is traditionally made with large stones and lined with impermeable clay that prevented the fresh water from leaking out and more importantly prevented salt water from infiltrating and contaminating the water supply.

Drains

The drains are the grates with holes located in low points around the wellhead. Typically there are two or four drains made of either Istrian Stone or Aurisina opposite each other surrounding the wellhead. Under each drain is a small basin to collect rainwater. These basins are built out of pozzali so that the water leaves behind any particulate matter on its way into the filtration bed. 

The image below shows a picture of a drain.

Filtration Bed

The filtration bed of the well refers to the mix of sand and clay and stone contained within the cistern that the rainwater flows through and gets filtered on its way to the well shaft. 

Filtration System

Beneath each well's drainage holes, there are small basins to collect rain water. These basins are made from a semi-porrous brick called pozzali which filtered water as it seeped through the brick and a mostly waterproof mortar that helps facilitate filtration through the bricks. Once the collected water travelled through the bricks, it would flow through the deposit of sand and gravel that took up most of the volume of the well. The center shaft of the well was made of the same brick as the rainwater basins. This allowed for additional filtration as the water entered the shaft.

The Contamination of 1575

Venice dealt with an epidemic from 1575 to 1577 that took out nearly a third of Venice (Seindal, 2023). This epidemic was likely caused by the surrounding saltwater seeping into the cisterns during an unusually high flood earlier that year (Raimondo, 1576). The saltwater and freshwater mixed to create “a certain muddy mixture so foul that it caused illness” (Raimondo, 1576). Despite efforts to clean out the wells, some of the saltwater remained and mixed with the new freshwater as it came in, drawing out the epidemic. After 15 months of consuming the contaminated water, the sickness worsened. Although the public health officials were fast in their action, the city's doctors ignored the symptoms and neglected poor patients (Benedetti, 1577). The neglect allowed this illness to turn into the worst epidemic in Venetian history, killing around a third of the population (Gentilecore, 2021). This epidemic left Venice with a heavy focus on finding a better water source than the cisterns in order to avoid an incident like this happening again (Gentilecore, 2021).

Disuse and Decommission

After the aqueduct was built in 1884, the wells quickly fell out of use. By 1930, almost every well was sealed or filled.

See Also

• Wells
• Wellhead
• Wellheads

External Links

• English Wikipedia page on Well