In order to finally solve the chronic problem of water shortage, the City of Cagliari had already put out a tender for an aqueduct project as early as 1857. From the outset, the project of Turin engineer Felice Giordano had stood out, which planned to collect with a dam the torrential waters of the Rio Corongiu in Sinnai territory and convey them to Cagliari in some large reservoirs to be built under the Buoncammino hill. The project was approved on February 27, 1861. The following year the concession for construction and operation was given to the builder Vincenzo Marsaglia, who later transferred the concession to “The Cagliari Gas and Water Company Limited,” which built the dam on the Rio Coringiu. Work was completed five years later, and on March 3, 1867, the new aqueduct was inaugurated with a mighty gush in Yenne Square.
In the first aqueduct system, there were three urban reservoirs, two dug into the limestone rock although at different elevations, and a third made of reinforced concrete on the surface. The system is still in use, although the reservoirs have increased in number in response to the city’s water needs: the underground ones have increased from two to sixteen, and the outdoor one has expanded. The underground reservoirs were and still are accessed through a long, horizontally developed tunnel, which was chiseled by convicts sentenced to forced labor, and which cuts across the entire Buoncammino Hill. The gallery has its entrance in a courtyard below St. Vincent Avenue and its exit in a clearing adjacent to the Palace of Sciences on Porcell Street. It is a tunnel a full 377 meters long, 2 meters high and 1.80 meters wide, straight except in the central section where it has a curvilinear deviation.
