The Bottini

Medieval underground aqueduct tunnels beneath the city

The 25-km network of medieval underground tunnels that carried water to the city's fountains for nearly 800 years. Guided tours descend a short section under the centre — typically the Bottino di Fontebranda or the Bottino Maestro — through low, cool, dripping passages of cut sandstone.

Tours run a few times a month, in Italian and occasionally English, and book up; check with La Diana association or the Comune di Siena. The bottini are still partly functional and the engineering, given that they were dug with hand tools, is astonishing.

things to do sight
A story
The Sienese began digging the bottini in the 13th century to bring water from the hills outside the walls. The longest tunnel, the Bottino Maestro di Fontebranda, runs for 25 km, all hand-cut through soft sandstone. The Diana, a hidden underground river, was the subject of an obsessive search by medieval Sienese engineers — Dante mocked them for it in the Inferno.