History of the Adriatic. Egidio Ivetic
the Eastern Mediterranean. A large Adriatic existed in the tertiary period, covering the whole Po Plain as far as modern Piedmont. Unlike in any other European context, closed in by the Alps and the Apennines, the plain seems, and actually is, a continuation of the sea. There was also a second smaller Adriatic. Twelve thousand years ago, early people could walk from Marche to Dalmatia as the sea level was a hundred metres lower than it is today, and the mainland went as far as south of Ancona where the early Po River flowed into the sea. After the last ice age, between 12,000 and 8,000 years ago, the sea level rose, and the Adriatic took on its current form. On the east coast, the string of Dalmatian islands is actually the peaks of the coastal Dinaric mountains whose valleys have been submerged. Over the last 2,000 years, the mouth of the Po River has spread out in numerous branches and has moved closer to the open sea.
Gazing along the Adriatic coasts today, from north to south, human activity can be seen everywhere, in urbanization as in the transformation of the vegetation. Only the mountains in the background remain unadulterated. This is by no means unusual in the Mediterranean. However, the Adriatic has never seen the growth of large cities like Barcelona (1.6 million inhabitants), Marseilles or Algiers, or immense Alexandria (4.3 million). The west coast has for many years dominated at a demographic level. Today, Bari is the most populated city, with about 320,000 inhabitants; Venice and Mestre follow with 280,000; and Trieste has 210,000 inhabitants. On the opposite coast, Split has 170,000 inhabitants, Durrës 140,000, and Rijeka (Fiume) 130,000. In 2011, the eastern Adriatic had 3,122,680 inhabitants in the coastal administrative districts, while the western Adriatic, the Italian side, had 9,853,716 inhabitants in the coastal provinces alone, from Trieste to Lecce. Hence the 2011 population on the Adriatic coasts reached a total of 12,960,000 inhabitants, more than Belgium, Greece or Cuba, which exceed 11 million. The Adriatic area we are examining here covers a total area of 240,000 km2, including the sea and the coasts, slightly less than the United Kingdom. The coastal administrative divisions (provinces, counties, communes and districts) cover an area of 88,049 km2, double that of Switzerland or the Netherlands, slightly more than Austria. If we add the province of Padua, often considered the first Adriatic hinterland, the historical region of Herzegovina and the island of Corfu, there is a grand total of 101,805 km2 and 14,402,000 inhabitants.
Wishing to measure the states that gravitate towards the Adriatic, the 2012 demographic picture was as follows: Slovenia had 2 million inhabitants, Croatia 4.2 million, Bosnia and Herzegovina 3.8 million, Montenegro 0.6 million and Albania 2.8 million. In other words, there were 13.4 million inhabitants on the east coast.8 In the same year, the Italian Adriatic regions had a total of 17.9 million inhabitants. Nevertheless, Emilia-Romagna and Veneto alone had more than 10 million inhabitants, compared to Marche, Abruzzo and Molise, which together numbered 3.1 million, or Apulia with 4 million. This is a population of 31.3 million people, slightly less than that of Canada (35 million) and Morocco, and almost double the total populations of Norway, Sweden and Denmark. This is, however, only a tenth of the population that gravitates towards the Mediterranean, which today numbers approximately 400 million inhabitants.
Substantial economic differences persist between the two coasts, which are – as we will see – rooted in a more distant past. In 2010, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the Italian Adriatic regions equalled US$495 billion; in 2011, the countries on the east coast reached a total of US$147.5 billion (Croatia 62, Slovenia 50, Bosnia and Herzegovina 18, Albania 13, Montenegro 4.5). The economy of the western side of the Adriatic is therefore three times as wealthy as the eastern side. Moreover, in 2011 the former Yugoslavia context had a GDP of about US$190 million (including Serbia 41, Macedonia 10, Kosovo 6.5), compared to Veneto, which alone reached US$160 million, or Emilia Romagna with about US$150 billion. Although these values are decreasing in the current economic downturn, the structural differences on both sides of the sea do not seem likely to change. The Adriatic therefore seems asymmetric when examined using demographic and economic criteria. There is no comparison between the Italian area and the other countries in terms of inhabitants and economic wealth. This situation derives from the past and is disturbing when recalling the asymmetry that existed between the two coasts in terms of navigability and maritime practice: it is well known that for thousands of years it was the east coast that predominated over the west coast in the circulation of ships. Moreover, there is asymmetry concerning cultural, linguistic, religious complexity, in short, between the much more homogeneous situation of the west coast and the assortment of confines on the east coast.
A system of regions
The framework of beaches is the backbone of all seas. In terms of longitude, there are two Adriatic seas – western and eastern – and the perception of the sea has always been based on this dualism.9 The west coast coincides with Italy and is a long straight line that begins in Salento. The wooded Gargano area, a peninsula a thousand metres high that juts out 50 kilometres into the sea, the ‘elbow’ of Mount Conero near Ancona, and the mouths of the Po River are the irregularities that break up a coast that is mainly linear, uniform, low and sandy. In the northern lagoon area, it bends eastwards towards the Karst Plateau. Here, in the Gulf of Panzano between Monfalcone and Duino, the Timavo River flows from the rocky subsoil and is the northernmost extremity of the sea (latitude 45°47’), the point at which the coast abruptly turns to the south-east. There is a sudden break between the Friulan Plain and the wall of the Karst Plateau. One perceives this travelling on the motorway towards Trieste. The eastern Adriatic starts here and is a long cliff more than two-thirds karst. The landscape around Duino is similar to Dalmatia, Herzegovina and the Montenegrin riviera. It is an extremely jagged coast, divided into three main sections: the Istrian peninsula, the Dalmatian archipelago, and the Albanian coast. This latter area is different, made up of wide inlets and sandy beaches as far as the mouths of the Butrint River opposite Corfu. There are therefore rocky shores at Otranto and along the Gargano coast, sand along the Apennine coast and in the lagoons, then once again rocks on the opposite shore, and finally sand. This is the coastal structure in a clockwise direction. It is a combination of diversities, almost a logic of alternation, either side of the sea. This has conditioned different approaches to the sea, different ways of fishing and seafaring, evident since the mid-twentieth century at Trani, San Benedetto del Tronto, Vis (Lissa), Fano, Chioggia and Rovinj (Rovigno).
The people who live on the Adriatic divide the sea into three sections: upper, middle and lower Adriatic. The dividing lines run between Ancona and Zadar (Zara) (upper/middle), and Gargano and the Bay of Kotor (middle/lower). The criteria for these divisions are certainly geographical and historical, but they also lie in deeply rooted customs, such as the traditional familiarity in relations between the Veneto and Istrian regions, between the Romagna, Marche, Abruzzo and Dalmatian regions, and between the regions of Apulia and Albania. The features of the three sections alternate, and also complement each other in terms of coastal type of marine life. Romagna and the lagoon basins between the Po and Isonzo rivers, which were historically centred around Venice and are places in which the Po, Veneto and Friulan plains literally once lay in the sea, are offset with Istria and the Karst region, almost a central European wedge, as well as the Kvarner Gulf (Quarnero) and the 140-kilometre long Velebit mountain range, northern Dalmatia. Opposite linear Apennine middle Adriatic lies jagged Dalmatia. Opposite densely populated flat Apulia lie the scarcely populated Montenegrin and Albanian mountains.
Each of these regional segments is a set of subsets.10 In Apulia, there are two large peninsulas: Salento (5,300 km2) which faces the Adriatic at Otranto, and Gargano (2,000 km2), which defines the Manfredonia Gulf; in the middle are the wide Tavoliere Plain and Terra di Bari area. Gargano juts out into the Adriatic and is a plateau 1,000 metres high. On its northern side lie two lakes: Lesina and Varano. Here the low-lying swampy coast has favoured the establishment of salt-panning plants. At Manfredonia, Barletta, Trani, Bisceglie, Molfetta, Giovinazzo, Bari, Mola di Bari and Monopoli the coast is rocky. This has been one of the most densely urbanized areas of the Adriatic since Roman and medieval times. Further south lie the ports of Brindisi and Otranto. Apparently homogeneous, Apulia has always had an articulated social and identity reality. Nevertheless, Bari – one of the most dynamic cities in southern Italy – dominates. It is the only true counterpart for the ancient capital of Naples. Bari tends to increasingly