Cascade at Terni, Italy

Gioachino Altobelli photographed Rome’s ancient columns, arches, temples, and tombs. This site may appear to be a work of nature, but it too is the work of Roman engineers: a massive trench was dug in the 3rd century BC (and again in the 15th and 16th centuries) to drain malarial wetlands around the town of Rieti. Though a mere byproduct of that land management, the resulting falls have been admired by poets, painters, photographers, and tourists for more than two millennia. Altobelli’s view conveys a vivid sense of the precipitous drop, the rushing torrent, and the spray of the falls caught in the light.