I've posted too many 20th-century buildings lately, so today we do something else...Il Cisternone
(1829-1842), constructed to the design of Pasquale Poccianti (1774-1858), is situated on what were the outskirts of 19th-century Livorno and is the largest and best known of the city's covered cisterns. While the facade of the Cisternone was completed by 1833, the water system was not fully operational until 1842.
The building appears almost surreal in its design, due to its impressive half-dome which, inspired by the Pantheon in Rome, resembles more a section than a façade. It is an enormous niche — open to the elements — thus it seemingly showing the interior from the exterior. A similar, but less theatrical, construction can be seen crowning the classical temple front of Alberti's Basilica of Sant'Andrea in Mantua.
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