Le nuove sponde del Tevere a Roma: storia della costruzione e il crollo dei muraglioni agli Anguillara (1878-1900) = On the Tiber waterfront in Rome: history of the construction and the collapse of the Anguillara retaining walls (1878-1900)

Despite the broad research interest in the Tiber river history in different disciplinary fields, the construction history of the urban river flood defenses between the 19th and 20th centuries, and its contribution to engineering and urban history, is still overlooked. In this field, the analysis of the unexploited historical archives of the Engineering Corps – such as the collection of the Ufficio Speciale per il Tevere e l’Agro Romano within the Genio Civile of Rome Archive – give a major contribution. Grounding on archive surveys, this paper focuses on the construction and the collapse of the 125 m-long Anguillara section after the river flood of December 1900. A cross-disciplinary critical review of the construction techniques, the worksite processes, and the design methods used, both at the project stage (1878) and during post-collapse assessment (1901) is presented. The impact of the failure on both the design of the retaining walls and the urban waterfront asset is also discussed. The study is conducted within research agreement between the Rome State Archive and the Department of Civil and Computer Science Engineering of the University of Rome “Tor Vergata” and supported by the project “Tiber’S: Le strutture di inalveazione del Tevere e la sicurezza delle aree del centro di Roma: analisi geotecnica, monitoraggio satellitare, indagine storica”.