| Marmore Waterfalls
Stupendously located in a natural scenario of peerless beauty, the Marmore Waterfalls (7 km from Terni along the Valnerina state road) is an artificial work built by the Romans.
In 290 BC the consul Curio Dentato ordered a canal to be dug (Cavo Curiano) in order to make the
stagnant waters of the Velino river flow down into the Rieti valley conveying it to the Marmore cliff, from where it was made to fall down onto the bed of the river Nera below with a jump of 165 metres. At that time the work was heralded as a great event and certainly contributed to stengthen the prestige of Rome among the inhabitants of Umbria, recently conquered. But popular imagination prefers to give it a mythological origin: the story goes that the nymph Nera had fallen in love with a shepherd, Velino, but Juno to punish her transformed her into a river, the Nera. Velino, anguished, threw himself down from the Marmore cliff in order to be united with his beloved: that mortal jump would continue for eternity.
In every era the beauty of the Waterfalls has inspired poets and artists; numerous reproductions of Italian and foreign artists exist; it seems that Virgil referred to the Marmore Waterfalls when he quotes in the Aeneid, VII book, a valley of dark woodlands and between the trees a river which thunders and falls over big stones. Also G. Byron in his Childe Harolds Pilgrimage sings the praises of the Waterfall describing it as one of the most fascinating spectacles ever seen during his numerous journeys.
For the last 50 years the waters of the Waterfall have been used to supply hydroelectric power stations: the abundance of water in the entire area is the origin of the industrial development of the Terni basin where siderurgical, electrochemical and electrical industries have been set up.
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