History of the Adriatic. Egidio Ivetic

History of the Adriatic - Egidio Ivetic


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and regionalize not only Apulia but also areas of Basilicata, and it is the Italian port for Montenegro and Albania.

      In the region of the ancient Picenum, which corresponds partially to present-day Molise, Abruzzo and part of Marche, there is a uniformity in the landscape overlooking the Adriatic. The Apennine mountain chain, of which Gran Sasso in Abruzzo is the highest peak, is a more inland area, and it has been a zone traditionally used for pastoralism. There then comes a hill area (more common in Marche) crossed by 20-odd smaller rivers that flow into the Adriatic. This area is characterized by cities which, although they are not far from the sea, are certainly distant from the maritime world. From south to north lie Lanciano, Chieti, Teramo, Ascoli Piceno, Fermo, Macerata, Recanati, Jesi and Urbino. These are all cities that represent the ideal classical Italian landscape: fertile soil, picturesque scenery, in which crops – cereals, vines and olives – prevail. But they are also fragile at a hydrogeological level. Finally, the coast: a long strip of sand with shallow seabeds, also crossed by many rivers. It was a sparsely inhabited area, almost deserted, until the late nineteenth century.

      Romagna is an Adriatic region characterized like few other regions by marine tourism, by the seaside holiday industry. As long ago as the time of Emperor Augustus, Ravenna was the most important Adriatic port, which later declined as, together with Comacchio, both silted up. Rimini was for years a small port. Nevertheless Ravenna, and Ferrara, although envious of its characteristics and its eccentric position regarding Romagna, just like Forlì and Cesena, both inevitably agricultural cities closely linked to the Po Plain, have always looked to the Adriatic rather than gravitated towards it. Once again, the sandy beaches and the shallow seabed, which was mainly impassable for navigation, isolated rather than united Romagna from the sea. The Po River completes this picture, with its wide delta mouth bordering and dividing the Romagna and Ferrara coasts and the Venetian lagoon basins. Romagna is of course Adriatic in nature but is nevertheless connected to the Via Emilia axis, which forms one large urban sprawl, a single industrial zone, from Piacenza to Rimini. The crowded beaches in the summer, when the sea acts merely as a background, are the continuation of and the final limit to the Po megalopolis.

      The Istrian peninsula, characteristic because of its triangular shape and its jagged coastline, is the first territorial unity when one continues along the eastern Adriatic coast. More than a geographic expression, it is a historic region that dates back to the Augustan Regio X Venetia et Histria, to the Byzantine Theme (sixth to eighth centuries), to the Margraviate of the Holy Roman Empire (1060) up to the present-day Croatian county of Istria that inherited this administrative tradition. The region is today divided between three states: Muggia (Milje) lies in Italy; Koper (Capodistria), Piran (Pirano), and Izola (Isola) lie in Slovenia (the Slovene coast); the rest of the region, with the main cities of Pula (Pola) and Rovinj (Rovigno), is part of Croatia, the county of Istria. The maritime world has always characterized this area, from Trieste to the Kvarner Gulf, which defines the eastern side of the peninsula and leads to the city of Rijeka. Istria was a border zone and periphery: the extreme limit of Roman Italy, Byzantium, the Holy Roman Empire, Venice, the Habsburgs, coast of Austria, periphery of Italy and Yugoslavia. Only recently has there been a tendency to value its regional individuality in political terms with its rich multiculturalism and transnational heritage.


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