The city of Candia suffered constantly from the lack of fresh water. During the Byzantine period water came mainly from wells. Most of them probably remained in use during the Venetian period, according to the sources and the well mouths which are preserved. Underground cisterns collecting rain water were also in use. According to the account of the Proveditore Generale Isepo Civran in 1639 there were 1270 wells and 273 cisterns in Candia. A very large cistern with five barrel-vaulted rooms supported by colonnades is preserved intact between the church of St. Titus and the basement of an old ice industry to the North. In the Venetian period three barrel vaulted cisterns were added to the North of the former and later the whole complex was connected to the Morosini aqueduct. A second cistern with colonnades was discovered to the SW of St. Titus. Another large cistern consisting of two barrel-vaulted rooms was constructed over the ground level to the South of the Arsenalli Nuovisimi (cistern of Zane). The large cistern constructed by Morosini into the southern moat of the old enceinte, next to the barracks of St. George, remains under the modern Dikaiosynis Str. and the adjacent buildings. Underground cisterns were also found near the Loggia, in the NE corner of the “Theotokopoulos” park, in the area of the church of the Three Martyrs in 1866 str. and in other places.

The first attempt to supply water through an aqueduct was conducted by the Capitan Generale Giovanni Matteo Bembo. The homonymous fountain, which was constructed between 1552 and 1554 to the South of the monastery of San Salvatore is still preserved next to the ottoman fountain in the “Kornaros” Square. It recently went under conservation, together with the relief slab of the fountain that constructed in 1603 the Duke Giovanni Sagredo in the NW corner of the Loggia.

The construction of the aqueduct from Francesco Morosini aimed to solve the problem of the water supply once and for all. The luxurious fountain that he ordered to be constructed in the middle of the Square of the Cereals, better known to the locals as “the Lions”, has lost the impressive statue of Poseidon which surmounted it. It still remains an emblematic monument for Heraklion, though it suffocates in the highly commercial city center.

The latest hydraulic work was constructed by the Proveditore Generale Antonio Priuli just three years before the Fall of Candia, in 1666, in a period when the Ottomans had cut off the supply from the two older aqueducts. It ended in the homonymous fountain, which is still preserved near the gate of Dermatas.