has at all times been a source of anxiety to the Venetians on account
of its irregularities. Formerly it entered the lagoons at Fusina, and
its alluvium filled up the canals {207} and infected the air. The
Paduans and other inhabitants of the lowlands were anxious to divert it
by the most direct course into the lagoons, so as to avoid inundations,
whilst the Venetians were solicitous to get rid of a river which
threatened to fill up their lagoons and render them insalubrious. These
conflicting interests gave rise to numerous wars. The possession of the
coast became a question of existence to the Venetians, and no sooner
had they obtained it than they set about “regulating” the Lower Brenta.
Hy means of two canals, the Brenta Nuova, or Brentone, and the Brenta
Nuovissima, the river was conducted right round the lagoons to the port
of Brondolo, a few miles to the north of the Adige. But the river,
whose course had thus been considerably lengthened, gradually filled
up the bed in its upper course, and it was found impossible to {208}
confine it within its lateral embankments. They were broken through
by the floods no less than twenty times between 1811 and 1859, and, as
the channel of the river became more and more choked, a more frequent
recurrence of such disasters was naturally expected. It was then
resolved to shorten the course of the river to the extent of ten miles,
by diverting it into a portion of the lagoon of Chioggia. The danger
of irruptions has thus been averted for a time, but the fisheries
of Chioggia have been completely destroyed, and fever is a frequent
visitor in the towns of the littoral.
There can be no doubt that but for the efforts of the Venetian
engineers the lagoons of the Lido, Malamocco, and Chioggia would long
ago have been converted into dry land. Venice has at all times been
alive to the necessity of preserving its precious inland sea. The
Venetian engineers were not content with turning aside the torrents
which formerly poured their waters into the lagoons; they have also, by
means of canals, moved the mouths of the Sile and Piave to the east,
thus securing the ports of the Lido from the dreaded alluvium of the
rivers. They even conceived the gigantic project of a huge encircling
canal for the interception of all the Alpine torrents between the
Brenta and Isonzo. This project, however, has never been carried
out. The débris carried southward by the coast current has silted up
the port of the Lido, which was abandoned towards the close of the
fifteenth century, when a new military port was constructed eight miles
farther south, at the canal of Malamocco, and it is now protected by a
pier extending 7,200 feet into the sea.
The torrents which descend from the slopes of the Apennines to the
south of the delta of the Adige and Po are as erratic in their course
as those of Venetia. The Trebbia, the Taro, and other rivers irrigating
the districts of Piacenza and Parma only cross a narrow plain between
the mountains and the Po, and do not much modify the topography of the
country. But this cannot be said of the rivers flowing through the vast
plains of Modena, Bologna, Ferrara, and Imola. They are constantly
changing their beds, and the remains of embankments met with all over
the country prove that all efforts to confine them permanently have
proved abortive. Modena itself was once destroyed by the floods of the
Secchia. The Tanaro, the Reno, and other rivers flowing towards the
north-west, either into the canal encircling the lagoons of Comacchio
or direct into the sea, all have a history attached to them; they are
blessed for their fertilising alluvium, cursed on account of their
destructive floods. One of them, probably the Fiumicino, is the famous
Rubicon which bounded the Italy of the Romans, and which was crossed by
Cæsar when he pronounced the fatal words, “Alea jacta est.”
The Reno is the most erratic, the most dangerous of all these Apennine
rivers. The bed of débris deposited by it in the plain measures 20
miles across from east to west. Its volume varies between 35 and 49,500
cubic feet a second, according to the season, and its bed is in places
no less than 30 feet above the adjoining country. The destruction of
the forests has augmented the danger of its inundations. The engineers,
puzzled by its irregular floods, have proposed the most {209} opposite
plans for subduing this terrible scourge. The river has been turned
into the Po; then eastward, direct into the sea. Recently it has been
proposed to divert it to the lagoons of Comacchio. But all these
diversions are attended with disadvantages, and whilst the inhabitants
of one district congratulate themselves upon having got rid of so
troublesome a neighbour, those of another complain of its inundations,
see their fisheries destroyed, and their navigation interfered with.
[Illustration: Fig. 68.—COLONIES OF THE ROMAN VETERANS.
Scale 1 : 356,000.]
Lombardini, the famous hydraulic engineer, has shown how we may
discover the places to which the soil of the lowlands of Emilia has
been conveyed by the torrents, and trace the ancient shores of the
lagoon of Padua, now converted into dry land. A traveller following
the Emilian causeway from Cesena to Bologna can hardly help noticing
the quadrangular fields on his right, all of them of the same size.
Looked at from the spurs of the Apennines, the plain resembles a huge
draught-board, the squares of which are covered alternately with
verdure and ripening crops. We learn from the topographical maps that
these fields are exactly of the same size, and there can be no doubt
that we have here before us the fields which, according to Livy, were
taken from the Gauls and distributed amongst Roman military settlers. A
sinuous line marks, in the direction of the Po, the shore of an ancient
lake. The rectangular fields, laid out by the cadastral surveyors of
ancient Rome, cease there, and we find ourselves again amidst the usual
labyrinth of ditches and tortuous roads. This lake has been filled up
long ago by the débris brought down by the torrents. {210}
The Po, proportionately to the area it drains and its length, has
undergone fewer changes than either the Piave or the Reno, but looking
to the populous cities which line its banks, and to the fertility of
its fields, the least of these is of some importance.
The torrent fed by the snows of Monte Viso is usually looked upon
as the head stream of Father Po, as the ancient Romans called the
river; but the Mastra, Varaita, and Clusone are quite equal to it in
volume, and feed as many canals of irrigation. Indeed, these canals
would quickly drain the Po if it were not for a bountiful supply of
snow-water brought down by the Dora Riparia, the Stura, the Orca, and
the Dora Baltea from the glaciers of the Alps. Lower down, the Po
receives the Sesia from the north, and the Tanaro, which is fed by
streams rising in the Apennines and the Alps. Then comes the Ticino,
by far the most important tributary of the Po, “without which,” as the
river fishermen say, “il Po non sarebbe Po.”
The Po, after its junction with the Ticino, exhibits no longer the
features of a mountain torrent; the pebbles have been triturated into
the finest dust, and no piled-up masses of débris are met with along
its banks. If it were not for its dykes, or _argini_, it might spread
itself freely over the plain. These artificial embankments rival those
of the Netherlands, and date back to the most remote ages. Lucian
refers to them as if they had existed from time immemorial. During the
great migration of peoples they were allowed to decay, and only in the
course of the ninth century were measures taken to restore them. In
1480 the great work had been achieved. Its importance may be judged
from the fact that these embankments protect 3,000,000 acres of the
most fertile land, yielding annually more than £8,000,000 sterling’s
worth of agricultural produce. Most of the towns have been built upon
artificial platforms or terraces, and up to the beginning of this
century they have never been known to suffer from floods; but whether
owing to the devastation of the forests or to the closing up of all
breaches in the dykes, the floods rise higher now than they did of
yore, and it has been found necessary to throw up embankments around
Revere, Sermide, Ostiglia, Governolo, Borgoforte, and other places.
[Illustration: DELTA OF THE PO]
Continuous embankments begin at Cremona, and they extend not only
along both banks of the Po, but also along the lower course of its
tributaries. The main dykes have a length of nearly 650 miles. In
addition to these there are smaller dykes traversing the space between
these _froldi_, or main dykes, in all directions, and enclosing willow
plantations, fields, and even vineyards. In fact, the river extends to
the foot of the main dykes only in a few localities. It is ordinarily
only 650 to 1,600 feet wide, whilst the dykes are several miles apart,
to allow the river to spread during the inundations. The land thus
lying within the dykes has been divided by the villagers into _golene_,
and is protected by smaller dykes against ordinary floods. The rules
laid down for the construction of embankments have been drawn up in the
general interest, and are sufficiently precise, but they are not always
observed. The old system, embodied in the dreadful proverb, “Vita mia,
morte tua,” is not yet quite extinct. Formerly the peasants were in the
habit of {211} crossing over to the other bank, and deliberately
cutting through the embankments there, thus saving their own crops by
ruining their neighbours’.
[Illustration: Fig. 69.—THE PO BETWEEN PIACENZA AND CREMONA.
From the Austrian Staff Map. Scale 1 : 325,000.]
The width of the bed of inundation enclosed between these embankments
grows less in proportion as we descend the river, and in the case
of the arms of the delta does not exceed 900 to 1,600 feet. This is
not sufficient to enable the waters to escape during extraordinary
floods, when they sometimes rise 25 and even 30 feet. Besides, it
frequently happens that the villagers fail to keep the embankments in
thorough repair, and sometimes entire districts are ruined because the
mole-tracks were not stopped up. A breach in the embankment, unless
quickly filled up, produces untold misery. The crops are destroyed, the
villages levelled with the ground, the soil is torn up and carried off,
and the inhabitants are swept away by famine and its fearful attendant,
typhus fever. These great floods of the Po and the earthquakes of
Calabria are the two plagues of Italy. In 1872 1,200 square miles
between the Secchia and the sea were converted into a lake. Two years
afterwards there still remained pools of water.
In these great disasters the inhabitants are afforded an opportunity
of exhibiting their valour, and it is always the most energetic who
succeed in protecting their property from being washed away by the
floods. During the flood just referred {212} to, the inhabitants of
the little town of Ostiglia fought successfully with the rising waters,
whilst many of their neighbours succumbed. The town stands close to the
_froldo_, and there is no second line of dykes to protect it. The dyke
threatened to give way. The inhabitants at once set about throwing up a
second barrier. All the able-bodied men of the place, 4,000 in number,
turned out to work, headed by their mayor. They worked day and night,
and, as the floods carried away the old dyke, the new one rose in its
rear. The victory was won; the floods retired, and their houses were
safe.
Some of those breaches in the dykes have led to permanent changes
in the course of the river, and these divagations have been most
considerable in the delta. During the time of the Romans, and up to
the thirteenth century, the Po di Volano was the principal branch of
the river, whilst now it has dwindled down to an insignificant ditch
which can hardly be traced through the swamps of Comacchio. Two other
branches, farther to the south, are used now as carriage roads. In the
eighth century the Po di Primaro, which enters the sea to the north
of Ravenna, took the place of these old channels. Another bifurcation
ensued in 1152, when the embankment at Ficcarolo was destroyed, it is
said, by the people living above that town, and the main channel of
the river, the Maestra, deserted the walls of Ferrara in the midst of
its swamps, and united itself with the channels of the Adige. Breaches
in the embankments usually take place in October or November, and
generally at the same places. The danger is always greatest at Corbola,
where the Po di Maestra bifurcates.
The Adige is quite as great a wanderer as the Po. Scarcely has that
river left its defile, or _chiusa_, of calcareous mountains and the
fortifications of Verona than it begins its erratic course over the
plain. In the time of the Romans the Adige flowed much farther to the
north, along the foot of the Euganean Hills, and entered the sea at
Brondolo. In 587 the river broke through its embankments, and its main
branch took the direction which it maintains up to the present day,
entering the sea at Fossone. But new channels opened repeatedly towards
the south, until the Adige and Po conjointly formed but one delta. The
Polesina of Rovigo, between the two rivers, and that of Ferrara, are
low tracts of alluvial land. The courtyard of the Castle of Ferrara,
which occupies one of the most elevated sites in these plains, is nine
feet lower than the highest level of the Po when flooded.
The frequent inundations caused by the Po and the numerous changes of
its bed, by spreading the alluvium all over the country, have raised
the whole of the plains to about the same level. But now, when all the
arms of the Po are confined within embankments, most of the alluvium
brought down by the floods is deposited on the coast of the Adriatic.
The land, therefore, gains much more rapidly upon the sea than it
did formerly. The series of dunes marking the ancient shore now lies
fifteen miles inland, and the new land formed annually is estimated at
280 acres. In exceptional years the quantity of solid matter carried
by the river into the sea amounts to 3,531,000,000 cubic feet; on an
average it is 1,623,000,000 cubic feet, sufficient to form an island
ten square miles in area in ten feet of water. The Po, next to the
Danube, is the most active geological agent amongst all the rivers
{213} entering the Mediterranean.[66] The Rhone is inferior to it, and
so is the Nile. At the present rate of progress, the Po, in the course
of a thousand years, will throw a tongue of land six miles wide across
the Adriatic, converting the Gulf of Trieste into an inland sea.
Northern Italy, in addition to these numerous rivers, possesses one of
the most extensive systems of canals in the world, which has served as
a pattern to all the rest of Europe. Lombardy, portions of Piemont,
the Campagna of Turin, the Lomellina on the Ticino, and the Polesinas
of Ferrara and Rovigo possess a wonderful ramification of irrigation,
which carries fertile alluvium to the exhausted fields. In the Middle
Ages, when the remainder of Europe was still shrouded in darkness,
the Lombard republics already practised the art of irrigation on the
vastest scale, and drained their low-lying plains. Milan, after she
had thrown off the yoke of her German oppressors, towards the close
of the twelfth century, constructed the _Naviglio Grande_, a ship
canal derived from the Ticino, thirty miles distant—probably the first
great engineering work of the kind in Europe. In the beginning of the
thirteenth century the superabundant waters of the Adda were utilised
in filling the Muzza Canal. The same river, at a subsequent period,
was made to feed another canal, the Martesana, which was constructed
by the great Leonardo da Vinci. The art of surmounting elevations of
the ground by means of locks had been discovered by Milanese engineers
about a century before that time, and was applied to the construction
of secondary canals. Amongst works of more recent date are the
_naviglio_ from Milan to Pavia; the Cavour Canal, fed by the Po, below
Turin; and the Canal of Verona, derived from the Adige.[67]
Not only the rivers of Northern Italy, but also the springs, or
_fontanelle_, however small, which burst forth at the foot of the
Alps, are utilised for purposes of irrigation. Virgil alludes to these
springs in his Bucolics, where he says, “Children, stop the water; the
meadows have drunk enough.” Lombardy is indebted to these springs for
her fine prairies, or _marcite_, which sometimes yield eight crops
a year. The great Adriatic plain has indeed undergone vast changes
through the work of man. Originally it was a swamp surrounded by
forests and heaths, but is now one of the best-cultivated countries
of Europe. One of its great features consists in plantations of
mulberries, the uniformity of which is relieved in many districts—and
especially in the Brianza of Como, that {214} garden of Italy—by
groups of tall trees, little lakes, and sinuous valleys. There still
remain extensive heaths covering the moraines of ancient glaciers,
which become more and more sterile from year to year; but the engineers
are considering schemes for irrigating them by means of the fertilising
waters of the Alpine lakes.
The irrigated area in the valley of the Po nearly amounts to 5,000
square miles, and the water it absorbs every second is estimated at
35,000,000 cubic feet, equal to about one-third of the volume of the
Po. If the proposed works of irrigation are carried out, the Po, which
now plays so important a part in the economy of the country by its
floods and alluvial deposits, will be reduced to the dimensions of a
small river.
The evaporation from the numerous rivers and canals of the country
fills the air with moisture. Rains are less frequent than on the
Atlantic coasts of England and France, but the clouds, driven by
southerly winds against the cool slopes of the Alps, discharge
themselves in torrents. The quantity of rain that falls in the upper
Alpine valleys equals that of the most humid districts of Portugal,
the Hebrides, and Norway, and the rainfall in the plains of Lombardy
is equal to that of Ireland. The annual rainfall in the basin of the
Piave is estimated at five feet, exclusive of what may evaporate or be
absorbed by plants. These rains are not confined to certain seasons,
though it has been observed that they are most abundant in May and
October, and least so in February and July.[68]
As regards the direction of the winds, the great plain bounded by the
Apennines and the Alps resembles an Alpine valley, the winds either
blowing up it from east to west, or in an inverse direction. The winds
descending from the Alps rarely bring rain, for they have deposited
their moisture on the western slopes, but those coming from the
Adriatic are generally charged with moisture. Nevertheless, owing to
the great extent of the plains and the numerous breaks in the mountain
chains, this rule is frequently interfered with. In the Alpine valleys
the ascending and descending currents are far more regular, and the
navigators on the lakes fully avail themselves of this circumstance.
The forty-fifth degree of north latitude intersects the valley of the
Po, but the climate, nevertheless, is not as mild as might be expected
from this circumstance, and the range of temperature is great. In the
Val Tellina the temperature sometimes rises above 90°, and frequently
fails below freezing point. In the plain the climate is less austere,
but it is notwithstanding continental in its character; and Turin,
Milan, and Bologna are for this reason the least pleasant cities of
Italy to live in. A few favoured spots on the Alpine lakes, such as
the Borromean Islands, are an exception to this rule, and enjoy an
equable climate, thanks to the moderating influences of a vast expanse
of water. In the Gulf of Pallanza the thermometer never falls below 40°
F., and we must go as far as Naples if we would meet with a climate
equally favourable to vegetation. Venice, too, is a privileged spot,
thanks to the vicinity of the Adriatic, and is healthy, too, in spite
of the lagoons {215} which surround it. It is remarkable that these
brackish lakes and swamps of Northern Italy do not give rise to the
dreaded malarial fevers. Venice undoubtedly owes its healthiness to
the tides, which are higher there than in the Tyrrhenian Sea, and
perhaps, also, to the cold winds descending from the Alps. Comacchio,
too, is a healthy place, and young natives of the Polesina suffering
from consumption are sent there to recover their health. Wherever the
engineers have cut up the connection between the lagoons and the open
sea, marsh fever has made its appearance. The swamps of Ravenna and
Cervia breed malignant fevers, especially where avaricious landowners
have cut down the protecting rows of pines and oaks. A heavy miasmal
air hangs likewise over the environs of Ferrara and Malalbergo, at the
head of the Paduan delta.
The Alpine valleys are the most unhealthy spots of Northern Italy, for
they are deprived of sunlight. Goître and idiotcy are frequent there,
and in the valley of Aosta nearly all the women are afflicted with the
former, owing, perhaps, to the water which flows over magnesian rocks.
The inhabitants of districts traversed by numerous canals suffer from
diseases traceable to miasmal effluvia. The food of the peasantry is
not sufficiently nourishing or varied to counteract these deleterious
influences, and many die of _pellagre_, an incurable skin disease, only
known in countries where the flour of maize, in the diluted form of
_polenta_, constitutes the principal article of food. In the province
of Cremona one in every twenty-four inhabitants is afflicted with this
malady. The sanitary condition of the people is even worse in the
rice-fields of Milan and the Polesina. The women there frequently stand
for hours in tepid putrefying water, and are obliged from time to time
to pick off the leeches which creep up their legs.[69]
But in spite of maladies, misery, and famines, always following in the
train of the inundations, the fertile plain of the Po is one of the
most densely peopled portions of Europe. Every plot of ground there
has been utilised. The forests, very much reduced in size, harbour no
game, except, perhaps, on the Alpine slopes, and even small birds are
rare. Not only snipes, quails, and thrushes are shot or trapped, but
also nightingales and swallows. Tschudi estimates the number of singing
birds annually killed on the shores of the Lago Maggiore at 60,000; and
at Bergamo, Verona, Chiavenna, and Brescia they are slain by millions,
the nets being spread in the hedges of every hill.
* * * * *
The population of the valley of the Po is composed of the most diverse
elements. Amongst its ancestors were Ligurians, probably the kinsmen
of our Basks; Etruscans, famous for their works of irrigation; Gallic
tribes, whose peculiar intonation is still traceable in the rural Latin
spoken in Northern Italy; and Celtic Ombrians, the most remote of all,
and looked upon by historians as the aboriginal inhabitants of the
country.
The German invasions during the first centuries of our era have left
a {216} permanent mark upon the population of Northern Italy. The
many tall men met with in the valley of the Po are proofs of this
Transalpine influence. The Goths and Vandals, Herulians and Longobards,
or Lombards, soon became merged in the Latinised masses, but their
position as conquerors and feudal lords gave them an influence which
their mere numbers would not have insured them. The ancient history
of Lombardy is a continual struggle between the towns and these
feudal lords, and as soon as the latter had been defeated—that is to
say, about the beginning of the tenth century—German was superseded
everywhere by Italian.
[Illustration: Fig. 70.—THE GERMAN COMMUNES OF NORTHERN ITALY.
Scale 1 : 650,000.]
Family and topographical names of Lombard origin are very common on the
left bank of the Po, and as far as the foot of the Apeninnes. Marengo,
for instance, is a corruption of the German Mehring.