Maremme
The Maremme is a rather vast territory, with the badly defined limits, located in Toscane (Italy), at the edge of the Tyrrhenian Sea.
Limits of Maremme
Dante (Inf. XIII, 7) located the limits of Maremme between Cecina and Corneto.
which proud selvagge che 'N odio hanno will tra Cecina E Corneto I luoghi colti.
The hills of the interior, dense glazes of Forest S, with corners enchanters, heiresses of a tradition of thousand-year-old civilizations, are crossed by two Roman ways, the Via Cassia and the Via Francigena. Before the establishments of the Duchy of Castro to the the Middle Ages, Maremme knew the presence of the Romans, of the Etruscans, and one found there important testimonys of the human presence at the time prehistoric.
Maremme bitter
Following the example erudite culture of Dante, the popular culture also made, through the Popular song, a portrait, quite different, of Maremme of the Malaria, underpaid seasonal work, deprivations and sufferings which characterized the life in these regions up to one rather recent time.
It is that which the stanzas of “ Maremma will amara ” (below), sing slowly, in the same manner that all was slow in Maremme: stagnant water, with its mosquitos Anophèle S, the social progress, the fight against the Armed robbery or the Illiteracy.
Tutti Ti dicon Maremma Maremma,
my has me semi avoids una Maremma will amara.
the uccello che Ci goes, loses the penna,
io it Ho perduto una persona will cara.
Sia maledetta Maremma Maremma,
sia maledetta Maremma E chi the ama.
Tutto semi dieresis it horn, quando Ci vai,
per will paura it che not torni May. .
The cleansing of the marsh
One of principal works of Ferdinand III, large duke of Tuscan, was the cleansing of Maremme; it frequently went there to see the progress of the work and to activate them. But its noble zeal and its very creditable concern were to be to him fatal.
During June 1824, while precisely returning from the one of its rounds in Maremme, it felt the primary symptoms of a Fièvre which did not leave it any more during the remainder of its life.
Ferdinand was constrained to be confined to bed, and the eminent doctors were at once with his bedside to tear off it with death, by all the means which the medical art of the time suggested. All these efforts appeared however useless, the evil was stronger than the scientists.
The son of Ferdinand III, Léopold II succeeded to him and let himself allure by this company. He thus intended to compete with his large grandfather Pierre Léopold and with his father who had cleansed the Val di Chiana and had, already, tempted to cleanse Maremme.
The cleansing of Maremme, considering the great extension of the territory concerned, was a company worthy of the former Romans and not of small States like the Grand-Duchy of Tuscany. The part which it was a question of cleansing was that which borders the sea, since the mouth of Cecina to the border of the Papal States. The advantages of this operation would have been incalculable, because it would have transformed these immense stretch of water brackish into cultivable grounds.
The count Fossombroni, adviser of the sovereigns, had imagined to cleanse Maremme since 1804 and had openly declared this intention in various writings. He thought of building channels, roads and a port, while being made help by “voluntary” citizens to transform into little time all this area in richness of the kingdom. Those which would have liked to be invested in this company were exempted various taxes, Octroi S with the doors of the cities, customs duties and Péage S.
What filled with enthusiasm Tuscan, it was in 1780 the cleansing of the field of Bolgheri pertaining to the count Camille of Gherardesca. This field was with approximately seventy kilometers Pisa and with seven kilometers of the sea, on left bank of Cecina. To release this vast domain of the stagnant water and muddy which made the ground unproductive and the pestilential air, the Ximenes Father, mathematician, suggested with the count of Gherardesca the opening of this broad ditch, named Camilla according to the name of the owner, who caused at once the draining of the grounds located between Bolgheri, Bibbona and the sea.
Extremely of these precedents, of the example of its grandfather, the incentives of Fossombroni and the good provisions of its heart, Léopold II emitted the April 27th 1828 the edict for the cleansing of Maremme to the expenses of the State. Work began with the end of the year 1829 and employed approximately fifty thousand workmen come from all the areas from Tuscany, other Italian States and even from abroad, under the direction of the knight Alessandro Manetti, who was with the direct orders of the large duke.
The son of the count Camille, Guido of Gherardesca, wanted with the years to continue the work of cleansing of his father; but the unmatched opinions of the engineers, of the experts and the hydraulicians, forced it to suspend the implementation of its project. However what seemed impossible with so many scientists and engineers this time, was carried out easily, without din and arrogance, by an obscure and modest man, who never of its life had not studied hydraulics or the engineerings. This man was the manager of Bolgheri, Giuseppe Mazzanti, which deprived of theory, but rich of the lights of the experiment, by the observation which it had made of the natural movement of water during the rains, filled the channel known as Seggio Vecchio and another, known as Seggio Nuovo dug some, thanks to which them immense marshy grounds became most fertile.
The April 26th 1830 was the decisive day: the new channel having been completed, water of the Ombrone arrived very quickly in the marsh improving all the surrounding territory.
The large duke rewarded Mazzanti for a gold medal and the count of Gherardesca was precisely remunerated for his service.
Maremme today
The malaria was eliminated, thanks to the cleansing, and the latifundia extirpated by the Land reform, the creation of the public corporation of Maremme and the assignment of the grounds. Today, Maremme still appears under its hard ground nature, with strong contrasts, the attractive colors.
The butteri are from now on the guards of the equine Race Maremmeno which is not pratiqement used pratiqement any more to follow the herds, but is employed for the sport and the Hippothérapie, and in the many agrotouristic structures built in the area.
The protected territories, of which most important are the Natural park of Maremme and the archaeological zone of Vulci made it possible to maintain almost intact the environment, and thus the Flore and the preexistent fauna.
The Cattle characteristic of this area, of Race Maremmana, was improved and selected for the production of Viande.
In the south-west of Tuscany, this the Italian Camargue was a long time a ground of stockbreeders with horse. There remains nothing any more but one handle about it.
Bond external
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