Polesine (; ; ) is a

geographic Geography (from Ancient Greek ; combining 'Earth' and 'write', literally 'Earth writing') is the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding o ...

and historic area in the north-east of

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

whose limits varied through centuries; it had also been known as Polesine of

Rovigo Rovigo (, ; ) is a city and communes of Italy, commune in the region of Veneto, Northeast Italy, the capital of the province of Rovigo, eponymous province. Geography Rovigo stands on the low ground known as Polesine, by rail southwest of Veni ...

for some time. Nowadays it corresponds with the province of Rovigo in the viewpoint of

political geography Political geography is concerned with the study of both the spatially uneven outcomes of political processes and the ways in which political processes are themselves affected by spatial structures. Conventionally, for the purposes of analysis, ...

. In the viewpoint of

physical geography Physical geography (also known as physiography) is one of the three main branches of geography. Physical geography is the branch of natural science which deals with the processes and patterns in the natural environment such as the atmosphere, h ...

it is a strip of land about 100-km long and 18-km wide located between the lower courses of the

Adige The Adige is the second-longest river in Italy, after the Po. It rises near the Reschen Pass in the Vinschgau in the province of South Tyrol, near the Italian border with Austria and Switzerland, and flows through most of northeastern Italy ...

and the Po rivers, limited to the east by the

Adriatic Sea The Adriatic Sea () is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkans, Balkan Peninsula. The Adriatic is the northernmost arm of the Mediterranean Sea, extending from the Strait of Otranto (where it connects to the Ionian Se ...

and leaving the western limit undefined.

Geography

The eastern portion of Polesine corresponds to the

delta Delta commonly refers to: * Delta (letter) (Δ or δ), the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet * D (NATO phonetic alphabet: "Delta"), the fourth letter in the Latin alphabet * River delta, at a river mouth * Delta Air Lines, a major US carrier ...

of the Po, and it is constantly expanding eastward because of the

detritus In biology, detritus ( or ) is organic matter made up of the decomposition, decomposing remains of organisms and plants, and also of feces. Detritus usually hosts communities of microorganisms that colonize and decomposition, decompose (Reminera ...

sediment Sediment is a solid material that is transported to a new location where it is deposited. It occurs naturally and, through the processes of weathering and erosion, is broken down and subsequently sediment transport, transported by the action of ...

phenomenon. The Po and the Adige are the first and the third biggest rivers of Italy as for rate of flow, yet another river flows across Polesine between these two main rivers: the Canal Bianco; this means that by far most of the fresh water of Italy flows into the sea through Polesine. Due to this large amount of water it has to deal with, it has many

canal Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface ...

s for

drainage Drainage is the natural or artificial removal of a surface's water and sub-surface water from an area with excess water. The internal drainage of most agricultural soils can prevent severe waterlogging (anaerobic conditions that harm root gro ...

. The biggest city is

(51,000 inhabitants), followed by

Adria Adria is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Rovigo in the Veneto region of northern Italy, situated between the mouths of the rivers Adige and Po River, Po. The remains of the Etruria, Etruscan city of Atria or Hatria are to be found below ...

(20,000 people). Other important centres are Porto Viro, Lendinara, Porto Tolle,

Badia Polesine Badia Polesine is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Rovigo in the Italy, Italian region Veneto, located about southwest of Venice and about west of Rovigo. It is part of the upper Polesine, and is bounded by the Adige river, which se ...

, Occhiobello and Taglio di Po. Important agricultural centres are Arquà Polesine, Loreo, Polesella and Lusia.

Etymology

''Polesine'' is a Venetian term from

Medieval Latin Medieval Latin was the form of Literary Latin used in Roman Catholic Church, Roman Catholic Western Europe during the Middle Ages. It was also the administrative language in the former Western Roman Empire, Roman Provinces of Mauretania, Numidi ...

or , meaning "

swamp A swamp is a forested wetland.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p. Swamps are considered to be transition zones because both land and water play a role in ...

" or "

wetland A wetland is a distinct semi-aquatic ecosystem whose groundcovers are flooded or saturated in water, either permanently, for years or decades, or only seasonally. Flooding results in oxygen-poor ( anoxic) processes taking place, especially ...

"; this is because this territory was a swamp when it was given the name. This happened after the disasters in the Venetian

hydrography Hydrography is the branch of applied sciences which deals with the measurement and description of the physical features of oceans, seas, coastal areas, lakes and rivers, as well as with the prediction of their change over time, for the primary ...

that followed the

decline of the Roman Empire The fall of the Western Roman Empire, also called the fall of the Roman Empire or the fall of Rome, was the loss of central political control in the Western Roman Empire, a process in which the Empire failed to enforce its rule, and its vast ...

History

Mythological origins of Polesine

Polesine's origins are connected with the

myth Myth is a genre of folklore consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society. For scholars, this is very different from the vernacular usage of the term "myth" that refers to a belief that is not true. Instead, the ...

of Phaeton, the young god who drowned with the Sun chariot in the river Eridano (the former name of the river Po). In Crespino, a small village in Polesine, there is a square (the chief one of the town) dedicated to Phaeton, to commemorate the old legend and the oral tradition saying that Phaeton died in the tract of the river Po crossing Crespino.

Ancient times

The Adige river flowed more to the north than nowadays and the main course of the Po river was more to the south (more or less it was the current Po of Volano channel). This means that in ancient times the area lying between the two rivers was much larger than the current area named Polesine. The

Greeks Greeks or Hellenes (; , ) are an ethnic group and nation native to Greece, Greek Cypriots, Cyprus, Greeks in Albania, southern Albania, Greeks in Turkey#History, Anatolia, parts of Greeks in Italy, Italy and Egyptian Greeks, Egypt, and to a l ...

founded Adria in the 12th -11th century BC on a former channel of the Po (nowadays it is the lower course of the Canal Bianco river); the channel was given the name Adria and the sea was given the name Adriatic after the colony name. The channel Adria was then recognized to be the lower course of the Mincio river, that was flowing into the Adriatic sea in ancient times.

Etruscans The Etruscan civilization ( ) was an ancient civilization created by the Etruscans, a people who inhabited Etruria in List of ancient peoples of Italy, ancient Italy, with a common language and culture, and formed a federation of city-states. Af ...

and Venetians inhabited the area during the 6th and 5th centuries BC, then it was conquered by the Romans. Etruscans and Romans decontaminated the area by digging canals for drainage. Some historians think that the battle of the Raudine Plain of 101 BC could have been fought in this area.

Medieval and Modern history

After the fall of Rome and the disasters in the hydrography of the whole Veneto,

tradition A tradition is a system of beliefs or behaviors (folk custom) passed down within a group of people or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common e ...

ally referred to as the breach at Cucca in 589, Adria and its port lost their significance. In the meantime Rovigo was founded and fortified later in the 10th century, and provided of a city wall in the 12th century; it became the new centre of the area. In 1152, another disaster changed the hydrography of Polesine: a breach opened in the banks of the Po at Ficarolo and the new main course started flowing much closer to the Adige. The rulers of the whole area (except for the new delta of the Po) were the Este; the area was formerly named County of Gavello, but two centuries after the disaster and due to the decline of the Abbey of Gavello it started being named County of Rovigo. Province of Rovigo evolution

In 1484, after the end of the War of Ferrara, the

Republic of Venice The Republic of Venice, officially the Most Serene Republic of Venice and traditionally known as La Serenissima, was a sovereign state and Maritime republics, maritime republic with its capital in Venice. Founded, according to tradition, in 697 ...

took possession of the area north of the Tartaro-Canalbianco, named "Polesine of Rovigo" by the Este because of its characteristic of being an island between rivers; other lands outside the proper named "Polesine of Rovigo" were also annexed, including the areas of

, Polesella and Guarda Veneta. All these areas established the Territory of Polesine inside the ''

Domini di Terraferma The () or () was the hinterland territories of the Republic of Venice The Republic of Venice, officially the Most Serene Republic of Venice and traditionally known as La Serenissima, was a sovereign state and Maritime republics, maritime ...

'' (Mainland State) of the Republic of Venice. The Este claimed again the possession of the whole Polesine during the

war of the League of Cambrai The War of the League of Cambrai, sometimes known as the War of the Holy League and several other names, was fought from February 1508 to December 1516 as part of the Italian Wars of 1494–1559. The main participants of the war, who fough ...

, but after a short occupation in 1508-1511 the frontiers were back to those of 1484. Between 1602 and 1604, an agreement between the Republic of Venice and the

Papal States The Papal States ( ; ; ), officially the State of the Church, were a conglomeration of territories on the Italian peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the pope from 756 to 1870. They were among the major states of Italy from the 8th c ...

that then ruled over the southern part of the Po delta allowed the digging of a new final course for the Po known as the "cutting of Porto Viro"; the

toponym Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of ''wikt:toponym, toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage, and types. ''Toponym'' is the general term for ...

Taglio di Po means exactly "cutting of Po" and refers to this event, that has been the last change in the main course of the river until today.

Contemporary history

After the

Congress of Vienna The Congress of Vienna of 1814–1815 was a series of international diplomatic meetings to discuss and agree upon a possible new layout of the European political and constitutional order after the downfall of the French Emperor Napoleon, Napol ...

in 1815 all the lands to the north of the Po were included into the Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia; part of these lands, the western and central lands, were annexed to the Territory of Rovigo to establish the Province of Rovigo in the Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia. The eastern lands were at first annexed to the Province of Venice; on 1851 the whole Po delta was detached from the Province of Venice and attached to the Province of Rovigo, thus giving the Polesine the extension it has nowadays.

The floods

Due to the large amount of water passing through Polesine, many

flood A flood is an overflow of water (list of non-water floods, or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are of significant con ...

s happened during the centuries. The main floods had been: * 589 (Adige): the disaster mentioned above as the breach at Cucca, that changed the main course of the Adige; * 950 (Adige): a breach opened at Pinzone, nowadays

, and the river diverted into the former course of the Tartaro; * 1152 (Po): the disaster mentioned above as the breach at Ficarolo, that changed the main course of the Po; * 1438 (Adige): again the main course of the river changed; it no more passed through Rovigo, and it has started flowing in the bed it has nowadays; * 1882 (Adige): the territory between the Adige and the Canalbianco was flooded; 63,000 people left the

country A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state, nation, or other political entity. When referring to a specific polity, the term "country" may refer to a sovereign state, state with limited recognition, constituent country, ...

and emigrated to

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

. * 1951 (Po): two thirds of Polesine was flooded, compelling 150,000 people to evacuate the entire area.

Geological formation of the area

Actual Polesine territory is, geologically speaking, of recent formation, created by drifts taken by rivers Po and Adige, and subsequently from human modifications. In fact, men reclaimed and decontaminated the area before embanking the biggest waterways. First origins goes up to the

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch (geology), epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.33 to 2.58epoch In chronology and periodization, an epoch or reference epoch is an instant in time chosen as the origin of a particular calendar era. The "epoch" serves as a reference point from which time is measured. The moment of epoch is usually decided b ...

. Contemporary to the rising of

Alps The Alps () are some of the highest and most extensive mountain ranges in Europe, stretching approximately across eight Alpine countries (from west to east): Monaco, France, Switzerland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria and Slovenia. ...

and

Apennine Mountains The Apennines or Apennine Mountains ( ; or Ἀπέννινον ὄρος; or – a singular with plural meaning; )Latin ''Apenninus'' (Greek or ) has the form of an adjective, which would be segmented ''Apenn-inus'', often used with nouns s ...

, the entire Padania was filled by a long

inlet An inlet is a typically long and narrow indentation of a shoreline such as a small arm, cove, bay, sound, fjord, lagoon or marsh, that leads to an enclosed larger body of water such as a lake, estuary, gulf or marginal sea. Overview In ...

(the Adriatic depression) and the

seabed The seabed (also known as the seafloor, sea floor, ocean floor, and ocean bottom) is the bottom of the ocean. All floors of the ocean are known as seabeds. The structure of the seabed of the global ocean is governed by plate tectonics. Most of ...

of this huge

ditch A ditch is a small to moderate trench created to channel water. A ditch can be used for drainage, to drain water from low-lying areas, alongside roadways or fields, or to channel water from a more distant source for plant irrigation. Ditches ...

was full of troughs and

elevation The elevation of a geographic location (geography), ''location'' is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational equipotenti ...

s. At the end of the last

glaciation A glacial period (alternatively glacial or glaciation) is an interval of time (thousands of years) within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. Interglacials, on the other hand, are periods of warmer climate be ...

(10.000 years ago), most of Padania actual territory was just formed.

Landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or human-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes th ...

's last mutation was due to the raising of the sea level and the ice melting. In 1604, river Po's natural course was artificially modified and after this work actual delta was formed. Floods frequently happened in Polesine filled the depressions of the area with several bundles of sediments consisting in

sand Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is usually defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural ...

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolinite, ). Most pure clay minerals are white or light-coloured, but natural clays show a variety of colours from impuriti ...

and

silt Silt is granular material of a size between sand and clay and composed mostly of broken grains of quartz. Silt may occur as a soil (often mixed with sand or clay) or as sediment mixed in suspension (chemistry), suspension with water. Silt usually ...

Notes

External links

*
PolesineOnLine - Social-Cultural Portal of Polesine
History, culture, tourism, news, youth and music of Polesine. Chat and Community, Forum. *
Museo dei Grandi Fiumi
{{Coord missing, Italy Geographical, historical and cultural regions of Italy Geography of Veneto