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Abstract:  For 441 years from the foundation of the Eternal City, the Romans obtained the necessary water supply from the Tiber and local wells. By the end of the IV century BC, they began to search for other sources of better quality, not necessarily near the city. In 312 BC, water ran for the first time at Porta Maggiore. It was Aqua Appia, from the agro Lucullano, brought to the city from a distance of about 16.5 kilometers. In the III century BC, Rome eleven aqueducts serviced Rome, all ending their course in fountains, demonstrations of the greatness of the work itself and symbols of the power of the emperors that had promoted them. This was not a phenomenon exclusive to ancient Rome: after a long period of «draught», lasting throughout most of the Middle Ages, a phase of urban and hydraulic renewal began in the fifteenth century and culminating with the construction of Acqua Felice in 1585. On this occasion, it was the popes who promoted the undertakings that are still known by their names and that raised Rome to the magnificence of the Imperial Period. My contribution studies, both in quantitative and qualitative terms, how the aqueducts’ routes affected and transformed the urban landscape, conditioning the urban growth, infrastructure changes and development of those areas furnished with water.