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Hydraulics was one of the main disciplines of the first school of engineering established in Rome in 1817 by Pius VII.

The present laboratory of hydraulics, built and equipped in the 1930s, has continued the long tradition of the Roman school and has always been equipped with state-of-the-art equipment. Among the equipment that has been ordered in the Museum of Hydraulics we can mention: -instruments for measuring the speed of water in the laboratory and in the field; -instruments for measuring level and pressure; - carpentry and mechanical workshop tools used for the realization of hydraulic models; -electrical and electronic instruments to be connected with the hydraulic instrumentation; -cameras and cameras used for filming flows.

The Roman hydraulics has its origins in over two thousand years of history, in fact the Republican era (312 BC) dates back to the construction of the first aqueduct by Appius Claudius Crassus. It is estimated that in the period of the empire came to Rome altogether about 13,000 liters of water per second, which is equivalent to over a million cubic meters per day, an enormous amount for a population that in the period between the fourth century BC and the second century AD had grown to over a million inhabitants. This water was destined to uses as much collective as ornamental. Most of the information we have about the Roman aqueducts we owe to Sextus Julius Frontinus, "curator aquarum" during the reign of Nerva (around 90-100 AD). From Frontino we know the routes of the aqueducts, the names of the builders, the water transported, the location of the springs, the type of wall structure and any other type of information related to the construction of these works.

Only in Rome, the water was provided by eleven aqueducts: Appio, Anio Vetus, Acqua Marcia, Acqua Tepula, Acqua Giulia, Acqua Vergine, Alsietino, Claudio, Anio Novus, Traiano, Alessandrino. Some aqueducts of ancient Rome continued to be used, although in ruins, during the Middle Ages, and were put back into service by the popes during the Renaissance. In this period the school of Rome had among its students two of the most illustrious plumbers: Benedetto Castelli and Evangelista Torricelli; other aqueducts were built (Felice, Acqua Paola, Acqua Vergine, Pia Acqua Marcia), and the city was equipped with beautiful fountains.

In the thirties of the twentieth century, together with the transformation of the School of Engineers (established by Pius VII in 1817) in the Faculty of Engineering of the Sapienza University of Rome and the construction of the university city, extensions were made to the seat of San Pietro in Vincoli. The most important of these extensions was the realization of the Institute of Hydraulics with adjoining laboratory under the supervision of Professor Luciano Conti. At the end of the last century, on the occasion of a radical restructuring of the laboratory, a large number of scientific instruments that had not been used for some time emerged. Among them we mention
chronographs of the 19th century; propeller with a positioning system to determine the scale of the Tiber outflow after the construction of the Muraglioni; stereoautograph of the 19th century; model of a radio of the early years of the last century probably belonging to Guglielmo Marconi; telegraphs of the 19th century.

The collection includes over 305 instruments and various equipment belonging to different sectors of Engineering: Hydraulics (105 instruments), Chemistry (7 instruments), Electronics (140 instruments), Physics (2 instruments), Mechanics (66 instruments), Geomatics.