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Tunnel in the Furlo Gorge, Via Flaminia
The Flaminian Way, built by the Roman Consul Gaius Flaminius in 220BC, was one of Ancient Rome's most important highways, used by its great armies marching to the northern reaches of the Empire. From Rome it headed north through the Apennine Mountains before reaching the Adriatic coast at Fano and on to Rimini.
The narrow Furlo Gorge, 40 kilometres south-west of Fano, posed one of the greatest engineering challenges along the way. Huge square blocks of stone had to be used to build the road with tapered buttress supports to a height of more than 50 metres above the river gorge as far as a rocky spur, through which a narrow tunnel was hewn by hand.
Improvement works were carried out along the road in 76 AD, during the reign of Emperor Vespasian, when a second larger tunnel, 38 metres long, was cut through the rock at the side of the original tunnel - chisel marks can still be seen in the rock today. This larger tunnel is still used by modern traffic travelling along the road.
The magnitude of this construction feat is now hidden to some extent by a modern dam which has partially submerged the support walls of the road.
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