In 1852, Grand Duke Leopold II of Lorraine approved Alessandro Manetti’s project to drain Lake Bientina, which provided for diverting the Imperial Canal built slight more than a century before on a project by Leonardo Ximenes. The diverted emissary was to pass under the bed of the River Arno by means of a so-called "barrel", that is to say an underground conduit measuring 255 metres in length.

The first stone of this extraordinary work of hydraulic engineering was laid on September 16, 1854. The Grand Duke was so struck by the impressiveness of the work, which ended in 1859, that he described the various construction phases in his Governo di Famiglia . The daring structure can still be admired today.