The story of Rome’s unlikeliest lake begins with fake maps, an angry community, and a patch of very dry land. In the 1990s, at a construction site just a couple miles east of the storied Colosseum, a crew was digging into the ground, excavating the site of a planned underground parking lot. It was part of a grand development project to turn a sprawling old textile factory, squeezed between train tracks and the busy Via Prenestina, into a massive, modern shopping center and business complex. Members of the local community…
