Navigation – Plan du site

AccueilNumérosvol. 18 - n° 2Artificial fluvial diversions in ...

Artificial fluvial diversions in the mainland of the Lagoon of Venice during the 16th and 17th centuries inferred by historical cartography analysis

Les détournements fluviaux d’origine anthropique dans la zone continentale de la lagune de Venise aux XVIe-XVIIe siècles déduits de l’analyse cartographique historique
Aldino Bondesan et Paola Furlanetto
p. 175-200

Résumés

Au XVe s., la lagune de Venise faisait partie d’un vaste (largeur jusqu’à 20 km) système de lagunes et de marécages côtiers bordant la partie occidentale de la côte adriatique septentrionale. Cette bande de zones humides constituait la marge côtière de la grande plaine du Pô et de la plaine du Frioul-Vénétie au sud des Alpes. Les lagunes se développaient entre les principaux cours drainant la plaine alluviale. Du sud au nord, la zone d’étude s’étend du fleuve Adige au fleuve Livenza. L’extension de la lagune a toujours été déterminée par la présence de delta fluviatiles et de passes lagunaires et son développement a été influencé par la charge sédimentaire et la dynamique tidale. Les entrées des ports étaient menacées par la diminution graduelle des fonds lagunaires causée par les sables arrivant des deltas fluviatiles (Piave, Adige) proches mais situés à l’extérieur de la lagune. Venise s’engagea dans une lutte épique pour détourner le cours des fleuves en les éloignant de la lagune ; le projet a été partiellement achevé entre le XVIe et le XVIIe s., modifiant la morphologie de la plaine alluviale et de sa frange côtière. Les anciens aménagements hydrographiques et géomorphologiques ont été reconstruits pour l’ensemble du territoire (plus de 2 000 km²). On a examiné plus de 7 000 cartes : 356 ont été analysées et les plus représentatives ont été géoreférencées et redessinées. La reconstitution s’est appuyée sur l’ensemble du corpus de données cartographiques, associé aux documents historiques et aux données géologiques, géomorphologiques et géochronologiques. Deux cas d’étude relatifs aux défluviations d’origine anthropique des fleuves Piave et Brenta sont présentés ici. Les cartes réalisées ont permis d’acquérir des informations tout à fait précieuses sur les projets de détournement fluvial, sur leur efficacité au cours de temps et sur les changements géomorphologiques en relation avec les interventions humaines et les récents changements climatiques.

Haut de page

Notes de la rédaction

Article soumis le 21 février 2011, accepté le 17 septembre 2011.

Texte intégral

Introduction

1The Lagoon of Venice is located on the eastern side of the Po plain in the Northern Adriatic Sea. It is about 55 km long and 13 km wide. The lagoon constitutes a remnant of the old lagoonal belt that used to rim the northern Adriatic coast until the conclusion of the land reclamation projects that started in Middle Ages and ended up in the period from the end of the 19th c. to the second half of the 20th c. The Lagoon of Venice and its mainland were involved in a complex geomorphological transformation triggered by repeated fluvial diversions carried out by the Republic of Venice mainly during 16th and 17th c. in order to turn the main fluvial outlets outside the Lagoon of Venice. Fluvial deposition was responsible of a progressive sedimentary infilling, causing water surfaces reduction and canals deactivation. Tidal inlets were narrowing and shallowing due to littoral transport of fluvial sands from the deltas belonging to the main rivers debouching into the sea just close to the lagoon (Adige, Brenta and Bacchiglione rivers, to the South; Piave River to the North; Favero, 1983). The consequence was an incipient status of crisis in the economic and environmental system, so that the “Serenissima” (as the Republic of Venice used to call itself) started a huge programme of artificial river diversions that lasted almost two centuries and brought to a change in the paths of Po, Brenta, Bacchiglione, Marzenego, Sile, Piave, Livenza and minor rivers.

2These actions were performed together with a complex of ordinary management of the natural environment that led to an artificialisation of the lagoon. At the end of the transformations, not only the hydraulic network radically changed, but also the sedimentary dynamics and the geomorphological setting of the whole alluvial plain, lagoon and coastal stretch. The present geomorphological framework is the legacy of the decision taken by the Venetian engineers in river management. Today, even the great dams and gates system at the lagoon inlets (the so-called “Mo.S.E.”; cf. Ghezzo, 2010) are facing the inverse problem of “high water” events, erosion of land and submersion of Venice that were enhanced by the negative sedimentary budget induced by river diversions and subsidence. Today, thousands of maps, used from the 16th c. for planning fluvial diversions and land reclamations, are collected at the Archivio di Stato di Venezia (National Archive of Venice) and were employed to reconstruct the ancient landscape of the Republic of Venice.

3The cartographic analysis was performed producing synthetic maps that give precious information on the diversion project, their effectiveness, the geomorphological changes both related to human intervention and recent environmental changes. The artificial diversions in the alluvial plain surrounding the Lagoon of Venice have been a topic of interest from different points of view. They have been studied since the 18th c. by famous hydraulic engineers and geographers (Zendrini, 1811; Marcon, 1878; Marinelli, 1881; Averone, 1911) that realised extended and complete works depicting the changes in alluvial pattern. More recent authors dealt with the hydraulic network in ancient time, both from an archaeological point of view (Bosio, 1967; Rosada, 1979; Bosio, 1994), and from a human geography perspective (Cisotto, 1968; Tiepolo and Marozzo Della Rocca, 1972; Favero et Serandrei Barbero, 1980; Cavazzana Romanelli and Casti Moreschi, 1983; Favero, 1983; Bevilacqua, 1984; Tiepolo, 1984; Bevilacqua, 1992; Tiepolo, 1992; Caniato, 1995, 1997; Vallerani, 2008). These latter deal mainly with the diachronic reconstruction of the landscape through the analysis of historical maps. In the thirties of the 19th c., the main monographs belonging to the most famous hydraulic engineers of the Republic of Venice, Alvise Cornaro and Niccolò Sabbadino, were published. Cornaro’s projects were addressed towards an extensive land reclamation, thus largely reducing the lagoon extension, while, on the contrary, Sabbadino aimed to the maintenance of the tidal fluxes and to the water dynamics. Many are the works containing or dealing with the maps they prepared in order to illustrate their projects (Cessi, 1930, 1931, 1936, 1941, 1943 a to c; Cessi and Spada, 1952). More recent papers give a geomorphological and historical reconstruction of the lagoon and its fringe, making use of historical maps and archive documents (Dorigo, 1983; Favero et al., 1988; Dorigo, 1994; D’Alpaos, 2010). In its monograph on northern Adriatic coasts, M. Zunica (1971) examined many Venetian historical maps and reconstructed the coastline evolution and the fluvial diversion during the last centuries. The historical map database, published by IUAV University of Venice and availabe on line, has led to the publication of extended catalogs of complete series of maps archived at the Correr Museum, the National Archives of Venice, the Querini Stampalia and the Marciana Library (Scarso, 2002; Baso et al., 2003; Cantile, 2004; Valerio, 2007). Much more recent is the publication of the anastatic copy with explanatory notes of the great Austro-Hungarian military map prepared by Anton Von Zach in 1797-1805 and edited by M. Rossi (2005), which is a notable example of methodological approach to this matter

4The present paper considers the geomorphological background of the studied areas. A remarkable number of papers relating the Venetian Plain have been recently published, though this research was mainly based on P. Giandon et al. (2001), A. Bondesan et al. (2004 a and b, 2008 a and b), and P. Furlanetto (in press); the first extended geomorphological map of the Po and Venetian-Friulian Plain was published by MURST (1997) with explanatory notes in G.B. Castiglioni (1999) and G.B. Castiglioni and G.B. Pellegrini (2001).

Materials and methods

5The ancient hydrographical and geomorphological framework was reconstructed for the whole area (more than 2500 km2) by use of historical maps, georeferenced and overlaid to available geomorphological maps and aerial photographs, as part of the Imago Project (Image Map Archive Gis Oriented). The Imago Project is mainly devoted to the implementation of a database concerning the historical maps of the Lagoon of Venice and its fringe (Furlanetto and Primon, 2004; Furlanetto et al., 2004, 2009). The final aim is the diachronic reconstruction of the hydrographical and geomorphological changes in the Lagoon of Venice and its hinterland during the 16th and the 17th c. The project started in 2001 and is still in course; it is funded by Magistrato alle Acque-Consorzio Venezia Nuova – Informative Service of Venice, through a protocol with the National Archives of Venice. This latter collects a huge amount of historical maps, more than 12,000, that were issued as documents for the decree of acts by the Republic of Venice from the 15th to the 18th c., to exert a strict control over the territory.

6The use of ancient cartography is a quite common mean to investigate the past, but it is usually limited to one or few maps, without a systematic analysis and often without georeferentiation, even though some authors made a valuable use of historical maps (Surian et al., 2008, 2009; Cremonini and Samonati, 2009; Podobnikar, 2009; Szekely, 2009; Bruna et al., 2010; Petrovszki and Meszaros, 2010). The content of the maps is not usually validated and a multidisciplinary approach is often missing. Moreover, the researchers are interested in specific topics such as fluvial change (e.g., Timar et al., 2005 a and b; Kovacs, 2010; Petrovszki and Timar, 2010; Zamolyi et al., 2010) or coastal fluctuation (e.g., Hopley et al., 2007; Jabaloy-Sanchez et al., 2010) and not to the whole environmental system. We made an extensive use of Geographycal Information Systems, adapting all the studied maps to the same system of coordinates and thus allowing to integrate different available geodatabases, above all the Geomorphological Map of the Province of Venice (1:20,000; Bondesan et al., 2004 a and b), the Map of the Geological Units (1:20,000; Bondesan et al., 2008b), the Soil Map (1:50,000; Giandon et al., 2001) and the Map of the Archaeological Landscape (1:50,000; Furlanetto, in press). A comparison was performed through the overlay map analysis with 17th-21th c. topographical maps; the most effective are: the Topographisch-geometrische Kriegs karte von dem Herzogthums Venedig made by Anton Von Zach in 1797-1805 (Rossi, 2005), the topographic survey of Auguste Dénaix (1809-1811), the map of Antonio de Bernardi made in 1843, the Topographic Map of the Lombardo Veneto Reign drawn by the Austrian Imperial Royal General Staff made in 1833, and the historical series of 1:25,000 scale National Topographic Map printed by the Geographical Military Institut since 1861. We also made large use of aerial photographs, mainly 1:17,000 to 1:33,000 scale, taken since 1943 and available at the Cartographical Office of the Regione Veneto. About 7200 maps belonging mainly to the Archivio Storico Nazionale (National Archives) of Venice were observed and controlled, selecting 356 among them according to the author, the century, the area represented, the commissioner and its intrinsic characteristics. The most representatives were georeferenced and the major landforms and geographical information were redrawn; through these analyses four maps 1:50,000 were created, depicting the ancient morphology and hydrographic network at 1550, 1600, 1650 and 1700. A comparison was performed also for the pre-geodetic available maps of 18th, 19th, and 20th c.

7Each record is linked to a raster image of the map and is organised in 12 forms, filled with all the information related to the single map. The filling mask is organised according the archive and technical data, as allocation, dimension, material etc.; the geographical and descriptive data refer to the coordinates of vertexes, the toponyms and hydronyms and the geomorphology; then, the chronology and the historical-cartographical analysis consider the historic framework; bibliography, with hypertext links to scanned original papers, and secondary data complete the mask, for a total of 101 different descriptive fields. The form is quite innovative, following the government criteria for cataloguing according to the Documentation Centre for the Archive Documents Catalogue and adopting an interpretative section where each map is deeply analysed and compared with the present topography and geomorphology. One of the main problem in cartographical analysis is that the chronology of the map is very often mistaken due to wrong archive information or because it was originally a copy itself of former maps. For this reason, each map has been strictly verified through the comparison with the topographical elements represented. A deeper analysis of each map led to a objective assessment about its reliability, the quality and the quantity of geographical information. The appreciation has been defined giving a score to consistency as: (i) author; (ii) hydrography; (iii) land use; (iv) cartographic symbols; (v) details abundance; (vi) geometry; (vii) originality.

8All the maps were divided into two categories according to the informative quality. The I Level group is characterised by low deformation, abundance of control points for georeferentiation, large territorial coverage, reliability and precision of the map, trustworthy chronology, author capability. The available maps belonging to the I Level are 45, 22 related to the 16th c. and 23 to the 17th c. (tab. 1). All the I Level maps have been georeferenced and redrawn by use of a Geographycal Information System selecting 27 layers. The elements drawn are: water courses, both in lagoon and in the mainland, fluvial ridges, lakes, lagoons, beach ridges, roads, islands, fisheries, lagoonal canals, salt marshes, tidal flats, reeds, swamps, woods, grazings, embankments, coastal defenses and the coastline. Toponyms and hydronyms complete the map. The first maps belonging to 15th and 16th c. were not drawn according to a geographical projection, but just using visible ground control points. The astrolabe made use of fixed points as towers and churches, from which a windrose was traced, giving directions and distances of single represented elements. We georeferenced the historic maps on the base of the Technical Regional Map 1:5000 scale, being the main problem to find a sufficient number of common control points. The rivers courses are the main elements considered for georeferencing; since many canals and rivers has changed in time, the traces of palaeochannels inferred from photointerpretation were very useful to find more control points. More difficult has been the interpretation of the maps depicting the Lagoon of Venice, because they are deformed or lacking detailed information. The control points were used to build a polynomial transformation that converted the raster dataset from its existing location to the spatially correct location. Ground control points were possibly spread out over the entire raster dataset to get the best alignment results. The raster dataset was warped to permanently match the map coordinates of the target data using mainly a first-order polynomial transformation. When more links were available, second- or third-order transformations were performed. The root mean square error (RMS) was generally under 200 m, highly depending on the scale of the map. Resampling the raster dataset was made by nearest neighbor assignment. A second DB, the “Forma DB”, was created to systematically describe the major geomorphological elements refigured in historical maps. The forms are organised to describe the characteristics of single morphological forms as they are depicted in old maps and in comparison with present topography and the geomorphology. The evolutionary aspects have been faced comparing the whole set of maps collected into the Imago DB representing the same object and summarising the geological-geomorphological history of the single element. Natural and anthropogenic evolution are considered, focusing on the causes that induced morphological changes. When the morphological change is due to human activity (fluvial diversion, embankment, canal excavation, etc.), the actions taken are exhaustively described, also by use of scientific literature available. When possible, there is also a morphometrical analysis (height, length, depth, radius, etc.). The quality of the cartographical representation in a geomorphological perspective is given by the distinction between the geometric or the symbolic one. The persistence of the representation of a single element in maps having different date give the time of existence of the element itself.

Tab. 1 – List of historical maps classified in Level I from the IMAGO Data Base and partially in Level II
Tab. 1 – Liste des cartes historiques de Niveau I du Data Base Imago et en partie de Niveau II

Nr Imago

Author

Title

Archival date

Real date

Archival allocation

Level I

7

Filippini Giovanni, perito ing. ai Lidi, Lucchese Matteo, perito ing. della Laguna, Foin Stefano, vice perito

Veneziano territorio.

Zona con parte del taglio del Sile, della Fossetta con rete di altri canali; da Portegrandi verso est nord-est, alla Fossa Vecchia.

1750, 31 July

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Sile, 17

9

Dal Cortivo Angelo, dis. Pertic.re

Piave (fiume).

Corso del Piave da S. Donà, per Iesolo-Cava Zuccarina al mare presso il Cavallino. Vi sono altri fiumi tra i quali il Livenza da S.Lorenzo al mare.

1532

1532

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Piave, 2

11

De Castaldi Giacomo, piemontese

Piave (fiume).

Valle posta fra il Piave e il canale Largon, dal taglio del Re al mare, con canali minori e laghetti nella zona.

1562

1562

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Piave, 6

16

Anonymous

Piave ed altri fiumi.

Regolazione del Piave, Livenza, Sile, Zero e altri fiumi minori del territorio, confluenti nel mare.

1639, 30 August

1639

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Piave, 15/a

17

Bonotti Sebastiano, vice proto all'acque

Piave (fiume).

Il Piave dal Ponte di Piave al suo sbocco in mare, con vasta zona di terre arative, pascolive, boschive, a vigneti e valli prative e paludose ed estesa fascia litoranea da S.Erasmo al Porto di Caorle.

1641, 13 July

1641

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Piave, 16

23

Alberti Francesco, perito della laguna

Piave (area del).

Settore del litorale con entroterra da Venezia a Caorle e piano di regolazione dei fiumi in esso scorrenti.

1684, 21 September

1684

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Piave, 26

28

Boschetti Lorenzo, ing. per. Magistrato delle Acque

Piave (fiume).

Comprensorio dell' alveo vecchio e il taglio del Piave alla Livenza, da S.Donà e S.Giorgio al mare dal Porto di Piave al Porto di Caorle.

1724, 7 December

1684

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Piave, 39

38

Fissaro Andrea, detto sotto proto

Trevisano (territorio).

Comprensorio tra il Piave Vecchio e il Livenza da Gorgo Monticano al mare.

Anonymous

1563-1567

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Piave, 102

40

Cristoforo Sabbadino

Piave (fiume).

Settore del fiume da Nervesa al mare, per Jesolo e territorio trevisano alla sua destra, fino a Treviso e al Sile, con tratto di Laguna e il canale di Lio Maggiore.

Anonymous

1550

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Piave, 110

43

Dal Cortivo Nicolò, perteg.re disegnatore

Dragojesolo (valle di).

Comprensorio tra il Piave, la Cava del Caligo e il canale Piochioso.

1539

1539

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Piave, 127

46

Minorelli Angelo, pubblico perito

Jesolo (comprensorio di).

Jesolo, Equilio, Cava Zuccherina (pertinenze di). Comprensorio dei canali Amaniolo e Passarella al mare, con il Taglio Nuovo del Piave.

1724, 20 March

1675

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Piave, 130/a

49

Marcolin Jeronimo

Trevisano territorio: mappa territorio della provincia di Treviso.

Campanatico con nominativo dei proprietari tra i fiumi (da sud-ovest a sud-est in senso orario) Sile, Valio, Meolo, Fossa Vecchia e Nuova, Lanzon e Siletto.

1547, 15 February

1547

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Diversi, 3

53

Anonymous

Veneziano trevisano territorio: territori veneziano e trevisano.

Regolazione del Piave e dei fiumi Livenza, Sile, Zero, Dese, nell'ambito da Ponte di Piave a Torre di mosto, Caorle, Tre Porti, Burano, Mestre.

1639, 30 August

1639

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Diversi, 20

55

Francesco Fiorini

Territorio trevisano: territorio trevisano e parte del territorio veneziano.

Mappa dei fiumi Sile, Dese, Marzenego da Lancenigo, Treviso, Mestre all'alveo del vecchio Piave, Porto di Jesolo, Tre Porti, Mazzorbo.

1668, 15 July

prior 1664

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Diversi, 27 A

70

Anonymous

Laguna di Ve.

Settore centrale laguna di Venezia, con bordo lagunare, ponte del Brenta e Fusina, isole del Lido, Vignole, S.Erasmo.

Anonymous

1547?

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Diversi, 128/3

71

Anonymous

Veneziano territorio.

Territorio Padova o veneziano, compreso tra l'ultima parte del corso del Brenta, da Corte al Mare, il canale di Siocho e il litorale.

Anonymous

1542?

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Diversi, 128/4

79

Fontanella Bartolomeo, pertegador della comunità di Padova

Sette Saleri (valle del).

Parte della laguna con le isole di Torcello, S. Andrea, S. Angelo e S. Lorenzo.

1572, 25 October

1572

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Laguna, 2

80

Dal Cortivo Nicolò, disegnatore

Laguna di Venezia.

Laguna di Venezia a Chioggia con i litorali di Malamocco e Pellestrina , l'entroterra fino a Piove e Palvello, tra Marghera S.Giuliano e l'Adige.

1534, 8 March

1534

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Laguna, 3

81

Giovanni Trevisan, Nicolò e Giacomo Alberti

Zona barenosa-valliva di Fogolana e laguna sud-occidentale, tra il canale di Corte e Siocho, il Brenta Nuovo e il Bachiglione, il litorale dal porto di Chioggia a quello di Malamocco.

1542, 9 September

1542

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Laguna, 6

88

Cristoforo Sabbadino

Torcello.

Parte dell' isola di Torcello con Sant'Angelo, S. Cristina, S. Andrea, l'isola di S. Lorenzo, S. Felice ed una vasta zona della laguna.

1573, 25 September

1546-1573?

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Laguna, 21

89

Guglielmo Di Gradi

Laguna terre, prati e pascoli al limite della laguna di proprietà di Francesco Foscolo.

1580, 18 August

1580

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Laguna, 24

92

Bagatella Giovanni Battista

Caorle.

Mappa del territorio di Caorle con il litorale adriatico, il territorio retrostante e il corso del fiume Livenza ed il Lemene.

1596, 9 December

1596

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Laguna, 33

94

Anonymous

Venezia (laguna di).

Conterminazione della laguna da Chioggia a Malamocco al Taglio del Brenta.

1610, 18 December

1610-1657(?)

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Laguna, 39 II

95

Scola Alvise, per; Alberti Francesco, per.; Fabris Girolamo, per.

Caorle (fascia litoranea).

Fascia litoranea della Livenza al Tagliamento tra i termini del territorio di Caorle al mare.

1644, 3 January; 1645

1644

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Laguna, 44

100

Mozzi Scolari Stefano

Venezia (laguna di) dal porto di Chioggia al porto di Venezia dal Taglio Nuovissimo del fiume Brenta a Mestre, canal dell'Oselino.

1677, 8 July

1677

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Laguna, 53

104

Margutti Domenico

Venezia, conterminazione della laguna.

Mappa della laguna compresa tra il canal di Volpago e il canal di Tessera, da Malamocco a S. Erasmo.

1691, 20 March

1691

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Laguna, 64

106

Margutti Domenico per.alla laguna; Gornizai Angelo, proto alle f.

Laguna di Venezia.

Parte della laguna a sud-est della città col settore litoraneo del porto del Lido e quello di Malamocco

1690, June

1690

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Laguna, 71

107

Cornello Andrea, proto

Laguna di Venezia.

Conterminazione della laguna, compreso il lido fino al mare.

1706, 12 September

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Laguna, 74

109

Scalfuroto Tommaso

Laguna di Venezia.

Conterminazione della laguna dalla foce del Piave a Tre Porti e dal Taglio del Sile al Canal dell' Osellino.

1711, 24 August

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Laguna, 76/b

122

Anonymous

Chioggia.

Laguna valli e terraferma a sud di Chioggia, con lo (sbocco in laguna) in canali e fiumi.

Anonymous

1534-1540

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Laguna, 129

124

Anonymous

Laguna.

Mappa della Laguna del Lido di S. Erasmo al Cavallino e con parte del fiume Piave.

Anonymous

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Laguna, 145

127

Anonymous

Veneto (territorio).

Comprensorio del territorio con la laguna ed il litorale dal porto di Brondolo a quello di Cortellazzo, delineato dal Bacchiglione e Brenta fino a Bassano e dal Piave.

Anonymous

1650 (first half XVII Century)

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Laguna, 165 bis

145

Panatta Iseppo, per. ing. ord.; Orefesi Alvise per. straord.

Trevigiano comprensorio tra il fiume Meolo e il Musestre e Sile, con le località di Breda, Caniè, S. Biagio, Rovarè, Vallio, Meolo, S. Martino, Spercenigo, Biancade, Roncade e Musestre.

1612, 4 July

1612

ASVE, Beni inculti TV-Friuli, dis., 481/58/2a-2b

146

Perona Feliciano per. ord.; Vecellio Pietro per. straord.

Trevigiano (territorio).

Trevigiano comprensorio Meolo-Fossalta tra il fiume Meolo, la Fossa Vecchia e l'argine grande del Piave.

1598, 28 April

1598

ASVE, Beni inculti TV-Friuli, dis., 481/58/3

161

Gallo Gerolamo, Sotto Proto all Acque

Jesolo (territorio).

Comprensorio di Iesolo col litorale "Pineda", i centri di Cittanova e S.Donà, dal Piave alla foce della Livenza ai Canali Revedoli e Dosa.

1582, 8 September

1582

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Lidi, 14 bis

166

Anonymous

Litorale della Livenza (col suo percorso dalla Motta al mare) fino al Tagliamento, con altri fiumi intermedi.

1527

1527 (revisions at 1534)

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Livenza, 1

171

Fiorini Francesco, vice proto al M.; Bagatella Battista

S. Stino (Gastaldia).

Comprensorio della Gastaldia predetta tra i fiumi Livenza e Largone e Lemene.

1662, 6 July

1537

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Livenza, 7

176

Rossi Paolo, per.to a Mag.to B.I.; Minorelli Angelo e Cornello Andrea, per.to Mag. Acq.

Caorle (territorio).

Comprensorio paludi e valli della Livenza al Tagliamento e da Villa Viera al mare.

1691, 21 August

1691

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Livenza, 12

178

Anonymous

Settore del fiume da S. Stino alla sua foce nel mare e territorio sulla sua sinistra fino al Tagliamento.

Anonymous

1540-1550

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Livenza, 17

194

Dal Cortivo Nicolò, perticatore e disegnatore pubblico

Brenta nuova e Brentella con parte del Bacchiglione e Brentone.

1540, 27 January

1540

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Brenta, 3

196

Anonymous

Veneziano e Padovano territorio: idrografia dal Marzenego (nord) al Brenta (sud), dal Vandura per Vigodarzere alla Brentella tra Mestre e Fusina con il Bondante da Stigliano a Paluello.

1611, 19 December

1611

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Brenta, 23

200

Alberti Matteo, ing. alle Fiumare e Minorelli, aiutante

Brenta fiume: settore della Brenta Magra da un miglio sotto Oriago (Ca' Bon) a Fusina.

1690, 19 September

1690

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Brenta, 41

204

Anonymous

Padovano territorio.

Idrografia del padovano con il corso del Brenta dal passo di Curtarolo al mare; il Bacchiglione con tutti i canali di diramazione dei due fiumi.

1786, 16 January

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Brenta, 100

210

Piccoli Domenico, per.to aiutante

Veneziano territorio.

Comprensorio tra la Brenta Nuova e la Laguna, da Lugo al canal di Montalban con le valli di Millecampi, di Mezzo e Cavalle.

1692, 5 May

1600-1609

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Brenta, 141/b

220

Anonymous

Laguna.

Porto di Malamocco.

Anonymous

ASVE, Miscellanea Mappe, dis., 198

221

Tommaso Fiorini, ing. dei Beni Inculti

Livenza.

Gastaldia di S. Stin, ossia le paludi a sinistra della Livenza.

1692, 13 February

1537

ASVE, Miscellanea Mappe, dis., 203

239

Anonymous

Livenza (fiume).

Mappa di terre site presso la Livenza fra S. Pietro della Remondina, Motta di Livenza e Torre di Mosto.

Anonymous

1550 ?

ASVE, Miscellanea Mappe, dis., 891

246

Glisenti Antonio

Piave.

Comprensorio estendentesi da S.Donà al mare (nord-sud) e dal Piave alla località Stafilo (ovest-est).

1581, 7 March

1581

ASVE, Miscellanea Mappe, dis., 1432

247

Dal Cortivo Nicolò, pertegador e disegnatore pubblico

Jesolo (litorale).

Comprensorio litoraneo ed entroterra tra il mare e l'attuale Piave Vecchia, Cavazuccherina e Canale Revedoli; dal porto di Jesolo (Piave Vecchia) allo sbocco del Revedoli (Cortellazzo).

1539, 22 April

1539

ASVE, Miscellanea Mappe, dis., 1440

286

Fiorini Francesco, perito

Malamocco (porto di).

Rappresentazione del porto e i canali della laguna Lombardo, Malamocco, Spignon, Fisolo e tracciato di valli con breve tratto dei litorali Pellestrina-Malamocco.

1662, 6 March

1662

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Relaz. periti, 5

Level II

10

Sabbadino Cristoforo, ing. proto alle acque

Piave (fiume). Territorio trevisano e padovano dalla Livenza al Musonello Fossa di confine e dalle sorgenti del Sile e Montello al mare.

1558

1558

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Piave, 5

50

Giovanni Donato, Cristoforo Sorte

Veneto territorio: territorio veneto. Provincia di Treviso e parte di Vicenza e di Padova. Tavola idrografica per vedere ove si potesse tirar le acque per acquare il territorio trevisano.

1556, 25 November

1556

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Div., 5

58

Alberti Sebastiano

Veneziano territorio: territorio veneziano. Tratto dei canali Muson e Brentello e della strada Orlanda con possessioni adiacenti.

1691, 20 Luglio

1691

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Div., 44

66

Sabbadino Cristoforo, ing. proto alla acque

Veneto (territorio). Laguna di Venezia ed entroterra fino a Padova, tre il fiume Garzon ed il Sile con Treviso.

1558

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Div., 6

74

Anonymous

Territorio veneziano: tratto del Piave, il Taglio del re e comprensorio paludoso fino alla laguna di Caorle con tratto della Livenza e canale Revedoli dal Canal detto dei Sabbioni a mare.

prior 1654

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Div., 129

78

Anonymous

Territorio trevisano.Comprensorio del detto territorio dal Montello e Soligo al mare e tra il Sile, la Livenza e il Lemene.

1550

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Div., 176

86

Hieronimo Mainardo

Area tra Bacchiglione e Adige.

1695, 13 May

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Laguna, 13

128

Sabbadino Cristoforo

Laguna di Venezia. Conterminazione delle lagune dal porto di Brondolo a quello di Iesolo con tutta la terraferma.

1550-1558

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Laguna, 168

156

Dal Cortivo Nicolò, pertegador e disegnatore pubblico

Venezia (settore laguna e terraferma). Settore della laguna, con la città, la isole di S.Giorgio in Alga, S.Angelo di Concordia, S.Marco di ? Settore del Brenta con Fusina, S.Olario, Oriago, Gambarare.

1540, 20 January

1556

ASVE, Savi e esec., dis., Laguna, 5

ASVE: Archivio Storico di Venezia.
ASVE : Archivio Storico di Venezia.

Geomorphological setting

9The Venetian Plain belongs to the foreland basin of the Southern Alps and corresponds to the easternmost sector of the Po Plain; it has been formed by the deposits of the major Alpine rivers flowing in the area, mainly Piave, Brenta, Adige and Po rivers (Castiglioni, 1999; fig. 1). The plain is characterised by the presence of alluvial megafan, which results from the tectonic setting and from the different phases of deposition which occurred since Upper Pleistocene. The evolution of these very large landforms has been mainly controlled by climatic change and eustasy (Fontana et al., 2008). The upper sector of the plain is known as “high plain” and is characterised by a dry surface because of the high permeability of gravels. Downstream, there is a lithological transition to the “low plain” where finer silty-clayey sediments forces the groundwater table to rise to the surface, forming a number of springs which lie along a 3-15 km wide belt (the so-called “spring belt”). The springs fed a number of shallow and constant groundwater-fed river that crosses the low plain forming a dense network (Fontana et al., 2008). The foremost phase of aggradation took place during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, 30-17 ka cal. BP; Fontana et al., 2008). Between Lateglacial and early Holocene, large incisions formed even in the distal part of the plain whereas the interfluves were not affected by sedimentation and pedogenesis took place (Fontana et al., 2008; Carton et al., 2009). Starting from Middle Holocene, a new phase of deposition affected the coastal areas, probably related to the marine highstand. Lagoon and delta formation started about 7-6 ka cal. BP but, in the megafans, an erosive trend is still recognisable up to 4-3 ka cal. BP, when widespread aggradation started once more and pre-existing incisions almost completely filled up.

Fig. 1 – Scheme of the Late Quaternary depositional systems of the Venetian-Friulian Plain
Fig. 1 – Schéma des systèmes de dépôt quaternaires dans la Plaine Frioul-Vénétie

Fig. 1 – Scheme of the Late Quaternary depositional systems of the Venetian-Friulian PlainFig. 1 – Schéma des systèmes de dépôt quaternaires dans la Plaine Frioul-Vénétie

1: river; 2: fluvial scarp; 3: upper limit of the spring belt; 4: mountains and hills; 5: tectonic terraces; 6: endmoraines systems; 7: interfan and intermontane deposits; 8: deltaic-coastal systems; 9: groundwater-fed river. Grey-tone areas: A: Adige Alluvial Plain; B: Brenta megafan; C: Astico fan; D: Montebelluna megafan; E: Piave megafan; F: Monticano-Cervada-Meschio fan; G: Cellina fan; H: Meduna fan; I: Tagliamento megafan (after Fontana et al., 2008, modified).
1 : rivière ; 2 : berge ; 3 : limite supérieure des sources de résurgence ; 4 : montagnes et collines ; 5 : terrasses tectoniques ; 6 : systèmes de moraines terminales ; 7 : dépôts d’intercône et d’interfluve : 8 : systèmes deltaïques-côtiers ; 9 : systèmes fluviaux associés aux sources de plaine. Zones en gris : A : plaine alluviale de l’Adige ; B : megacône du Brenta ; C : cône d’Astico ; D : megacône de Montebelluna : E : megacône du Piave ; F : cône du Monticano-Cervada-Meschio ; G : cône du Cellina ; H : cône du Meduna ; I : megacône du Tagliamento (d’après Fontana et al., 2008, modifié).

10The Lagoon of Venice is part of the coastal belt that was characterised by brackish environments for about 20 km landward from the present coastline from Ravenna to Monfalcone along the Norther Adriatic coastline (Bondesan et al., 1995). The delta systems of Po, Adige and Brenta rivers limit the lagoon to the south, whilst Sile and Piave rivers to the north. The lagoon is closed by two barrier islands: Lido and Pellestrina. The central stretch of the Venetian Plain is made up of three alluvial megafans. The westernmost one was created by the Brenta River and stretches approximately in a NW-SE direction from the outlet of the valley of the Brenta as far as the area around the Venetian Lagoon. To the east, this structure borders on the pre-LGM megafan of the Piave River (the Montebelluna megafan), which formed when the river reached the plain to the west of the hill of Montello, and not to the east as it did since LGM when it led to the formation of the so-called Nervesa megafan (Mozzi, 2005; Carton et al., 2009). The stretch of plain bordering the western sector of the Venetian Lagoon represents the terminal part of the Holocene depositional system of the Brenta River; this system borders to the north on the late-Pleistocene system of the Brenta River, and to the south with the Holocene system of the Adige River. The morphogenic activity of the Bacchiglione River is confined within the inter-fan depression between Adige and Brenta rivers (Bondesan and Meneghel, 2004).

Case study 1: the southward migration of the Brenta River mouth

Brenta River migration

11The low Brenta river plain, constituting the mainland of the Lagoon of Venice, is part of the terminal portion of the Holocene depositional system of the Brenta River (Favero and Serandrei Barbero, 1978, 1980; Favero, 1989; Bassan et al., 1994; Bondesan et al., 2008b). North of the Naviglio Brenta Canal lies the Late Pleistocene portion of the Bassano Megafan (originated by Brenta River), just back of Venice. The coastal plain south of the Venice Lagoon and of Bacchiglione River is completely below the sea level and is characterised by the presence of Holocene fluvial ridges, palaeoriver beds and coastal ridges, old swampy and lagoonal areas, now reclaimed. The system of fluvial ridges and palaeochannels was originated by repeated Brenta natural avulsions after 6 ka BP and progressive turning of the Brenta mouth to the south by human intervention starting from the 15th c. V. Favero and E. Serandrei Barbero (1978) identified the inner coastline position, reached during the Flandrian transgression, 6-7 ka cal. BP; here marine-lagoon deposits were buried by fluvial sediment supplies which caused a rapid eastward coastline progradation. Outcropping evidence of beach ridges is recognisable inland, where the coastline dates back about 5.5-5 ka cal. BP and remained here for a longer time than in the inner position (Favero and Serandrei Barbero, 1978). During the last 4 ka, several fluvial depositional events of the Brenta, Bacchiglione, Adige and Po rivers filled up the back barrier lagoon and the surrounding swamps, with a consequent eastward coastal migration. The different depositional environments are responsible for the various lithologies and geological features. Sandy and silty sediments characterise the remnants of ancient fluvial and beach ridges, whereas clayey silt, often rich in organic matter, fill the inter-distributary lowlands; swamps with peaty layers occur in the reclaimed marshy areas (fig. 2). In recent times, natural and man-induced subsidence, eustacy and impact of human activities, have noticeably accelerated the geomorphodynamic processes to the point that urgent measures had to be taken in order to reduce the negative effects, mainly erosion of littorals and surface reduction of the salt marshes, which play an important role in regulating the lagoon hydrodynamics (Carbognin and Tosi, 2003).

Fig. 2 – Geomorphological sketch map of the distal sector of the Brenta Plain
Fig. 2 – Croquis géomorphologique du secteur distal de la plaine du Brenta

Fig. 2 – Geomorphological sketch map of the distal sector of the Brenta PlainFig. 2 – Croquis géomorphologique du secteur distal de la plaine du Brenta

1: hydrography; 2: lagoonal channel; 3: lagoonal and fluvial palaeochannel; 4: alluvial ridge; 5: lagoon delta; 6: alluvial deposit; 7: littoral sand (after Bondesan et al., 2004, modified)
1 : hydrographie ; 2 : chenaux lagunaires ; 3 : paléochenaux lagunaires et fluviatiles ; 4 : bourrelet alluvial ; 5 : delta fluviatile endo-lagunaire ; 6 : alluvions ; 7 : sables marins (d’après Bondesan et al., 2004, modifié).

The historical courses of the Brenta River

12Geoarchaeological studies allowed to identify, date and correlate the historical sources of Classic Age with the palaeo-Brenta directions, testified by fluvial ridges and palaeochannels recognised through geomorphological mapping (Mozzi and Furlanetto, 2004). The oldest Pleistocene tracts, having NW-SE direction, are present in the area between Naviglio Brenta and Sile River. The oldest Holocene outcropping palaeochannel dates back to the 4th-2nd millennium BC; it starts from the area upstream of Pontevigodarzere, NE of Padova, and reaches the wide alluvial ridge that cross Noventa Padovana and Saonara (nr 1, fig. 4). Archaeological and geomorphological data indicate that the ridge of Boion (nr 2, fig. 4) probably coincides with the Medoacus River mentioned by Livius and Strabon who described a river that was active from the 4th c. BC to the 1st c. AD. The texts of the two geographers and the archaeological findings converge: Livius refers about the existence of the Medoacus as a deep river, with its mouth and its course inside the lagoon; Strabon cites a great harbour, Medoacos, and a river having the same name through which it was possible to reach Padua from the lagoon. Many archaeological findings along the ridge of Boion, from Padua to Lova (Capuis, 1994), and the presence of a sanctuary in this latter place (Bonomi, 2001) confirm the assertions of Livius and Strabon. A river was surely active during Roman antiquity when it flowed from Noventa to Camin, where a Roman bridge was discovered (Pesavento Mattioli, 1987), while in Saonara a river was active between the 10th c. BC and the 12th c. AD (Castiglioni et al., 1987). Beyond Saonara the river passed through Legnaro and Brugine, crossed the fluvial ridge of Arzergrande and outlet into the lagoon. Close to Vallonga it split in two branches: one continued to Rosara (nr 4, fig. 4) entering the lagoon near to Casone Morosina, the other one to the Fogolana site (nr 5, fig. 4). The presence of the Brenta along this direction in that period is confirmed by archeological data (Rosada, 1980) and by radiocarbon dating (968-544 cal. BC) of peats underlining the Fogolana fluvial ridge (Bondesan et al., 2003a). Plinius wrote: “in this way the two Meduaci and the Clodia canal form the Aedronem harbour” (Sicut Aedronem Meduaci duo ac Fossa Clodia) (Plinius, Naturalis Historia, III, 120-121; Rosada, 2003); nevertheless, the archaeological findings (Rosada, 1980, 2003) are dated before the 2nd c. AD. So, available data are not sufficient to confirm the abandon of the river course in the 3rd c. AD. Upstream, next to Saonara, we have clues of the existence of an active fluvial branch still in the 4th c. AD. The famous Tabula Peutingeriana, a road map which is a copy made in the 12th-13th c. AD of the original map drawn in the second half of the 4th-5th c. AD (Bosio, 1983), indicates another course, the Brintesia Fluvius, south of the Bacchiglione course, having its mouth in Brondolo, close to Chioggia (Brintesia coincides with Brenton, see fig. 3). Mediaeval documents mention in 1250 a still active Brenta that crossed the Piove di Sacco area to Bebe and used to debouch at Port of Brondolo (Cessi 1943 a to c; Bortolami, 2003), still well recognisable in the Brenton depicted in historical maps of the 16th c. (fig. 3). It is worth to know that it might also be an abandoned branch fed by effluent rivers. It is today testified by some palaeochannel traces still preserved and recognisable.

Fig. 3 – Artificial fluvial diversions in the Low Brenta Plain during the 16th and 17th c.
Fig. 3 – Détournements de cours d’eau artificiels dans la basse plaine de la Brenta au XVIe et au XVIIe s.

Fig. 3 – Artificial fluvial diversions in the Low Brenta Plain during the 16th and 17th c. Fig. 3 – Détournements de cours d’eau artificiels dans la basse plaine de la Brenta au XVIe et au XVIIe s.

A: 1550. B: 1599. C: 1650. D: 1699. 1: hydrography; 2: fluvial delta inside the lagoon; 3: mainland; 4: lake; 5: swamp; 6: old flow direction; 7: present coastline.
A : 1550. B : 1599. C : 1650. D : 1699. 1 : hydrographie ; 2 : delta fluviatile endo-lagunaire ; 3 : zone continentale ; 4 : lac ; 5 : marécage ; 6 : ancien tracé fluviatile; 7 : trait de côte actuel.

Fig. 4 – The fluvial and lagoonal flow direction of the Brenta from pre-Roman antiquity to Middle Ages
Fig. 4 – Direction des écoulements fluviaux et lagunaires du Brenta de l’antiquité pré-romaine au Moyen Âge

Fig. 4 – The fluvial and lagoonal flow direction of the Brenta from pre-Roman antiquity to Middle AgesFig. 4 – Direction des écoulements fluviaux et lagunaires du Brenta de l’antiquité pré-romaine au Moyen Âge

1: Iron Age; 2: Roman antiquity; 3: Middle Age; 4: palaeohydrography inferred from historical cartography (after Bondesan et al., 2004, modified).
1 : Âge du Fer ; 2 : Antiquité romaine ; 3 : Moyen Âge ; 4 : paléohydrographie tirée de la cartographie historique (d’après Bondesan et al., 2004, modifié).

The fluvial diversions of the Brenta River

13The Naviglio Brenta flows along a wide, sandy fluvial ridge from Stra to Dolo, Mira and Oriago (nr 6, fig. 4, and fig. 5); recent geomorphological studies date it to the 6th c. (Mozzi, 2008). A map of Nicolò dal Cortivo (Imago 156), drawn in 1540, though a copy of an original of the 15th c., shows the path along the fluvial ridge of Stra, after the deviation that Paduan Government practiced in 1143 on the left bank of the main Brenta river bed, bringing the water directly to the Lagoon of Venice in the S. Ilario Monastery delta (Cessi, 1943 a to c; Fersuoch, 1995; Bortolami, 2003; fig. 3). The historical map reveals two mouths: the older one (A, fig. 5), to the north of Punta dei Lovi, next to which in a map of Sabbadino (Imago 80) it is significantly written “Pond downcorrent the Brenta” (Sacha de soto Brenta); it has been recognised as “a fluvial transitional form between narrow and elongated deltas and natural levees” (Favero and Serandrei Barbero, 1983; A, fig 5). It probably is an old Brenta river mouth next to Santa Marta (fig. 3, A in fig. 5) that was closed by Venetians in 1191 hoping to slow down the warring phenomenon of interment. The second branch, which is recalled in the cartography of the 15th c. as “river coming from Oriago to the present Brenta” (Fiume de Uriago al presente Brenta; ASVE, Sea Laguna) used to outflow south of Fusina (nr 7, fig. 4; B and C, fig 5). The opening of the Brenta of Fusina determined a progressive degeneration of the Brenton branch, an older course of the Mediaeval Brenta, that ran from Saonara and debouched at the Port of Brondolo (fig. 3), and caused also an irreversible swamping of the S. Ilario delta.

Fig. 5 – The main flow direction of the Brenta River from 1143 to present day. Internal lagoonal margin and coastline inferred by historical cartography
Fig. 5 – Direction des principaux écoulements de la Brenta de 1143 à nos jours. Marge interne de la lagune et ligne de rivage tirées de la cartographie historique (1763)

Fig. 5 – The main flow direction of the Brenta River from 1143 to present day. Internal lagoonal margin and coastline inferred by historical cartographyFig. 5 – Direction des principaux écoulements de la Brenta de 1143 à nos jours. Marge interne de la lagune et ligne de rivage tirées de la cartographie historique (1763)

1: 16th c.; 2: 1763; 3: limit of the intertidal shoreline inferred from historical cartography (1763); 4: lagoonal fluvial deltas (A: Punta dei Lovi; B and C: Fusina mouth; D: Motte di Volpego; E: Canale Maggiore mouth; F: Canale Montalbano mouth; G: Delta Brenta reclamation; H: Taglio Nuovissimo mouth); 5: flow directions; 6: buried lagoon.
1 : XVIe s. ; 2 : 1763 ; 3 : limite de la ligne de plage intertidale tirée de la cartographie historique ; 4 : deltas fluviaux lagunaires (A : Punta dei Lovi ; B et C : embouchure de Fusina ; D : Motte di Volpego ; E : embouchure du Canale Maggiore ; F : embouchure du Canale Montalbano ; G : assèchement du Delta Brenta ; H : embouchure du Taglio Nuovissimo) ; 5 : direction des écoulements fluviatiles ; 6 : lagune fossile.

After Furlanetto and Primon, 2004, modified.
D’après Furlanetto et Primon, 2004, modifié.

14Many are the interventions, poorly coordinated and often contrasting, that were performed by the Venetian Senate through the Giudici del Piovego (Judges of the Piovego) in 12th, 13th, and 14th c. to contrast the progress of wetlands and the silting of the lagoon and its channels: (i) the repeated opening and closing of the Fusina mouth definitively closed in 1438-1439; (ii) the turning of the mouth southward, in 1324, through the Volpadego (D, fig 5) and the Resta d’aio (E, fig 5), in front of S. Marco in Bocca Lama (close to D, fig 5), and (iii) in 1452, the diversion through the Corbola, inside the Canal Maggiore towards the Port of Malamocco (nr 8, fig. 4, and E, fig 5; Favero et al., 1988; Bortolami, 2003; Furnaletto and Primon, 2004; Orlando, 2008); they are all testify in the 15th c. maps (Imago 70, 80). In 1457, the Sborador di Sambruson was open, where we find today the Scolo Brenta Secca, to make the River Brenta water flowing into the Canal of Lugo (nr 9, fig 4). The expulsion of the Brenta first, of the Piave and Sile later on, considered necessary to the safeguard of Venice and its lagoon, became an absolute priority and spark the first “scientific” debate off; at the middle of the 16th c., the opposing theories of Alvise Cornaro and Cristoforo Sabbadino, supporting the predominance of the land, the first, and the prevalence of the sea, the second became part of an passionate controversy. Along the 1500, radical project were approved, aiming at the definitive deviation of Bacchiglione and Brenta outside the lagoon to the Port of Brondolo. In 1507, the excavation of the Brenta Nova, decreed in 1488, was terminated. Its course developed from Dolo to Sambruson, Corte, Conche until the confluence with the Bacchiglione and then, through the Canal of Montalbano, to the Lagoon of Chioggia, where the new inner delta is well depicted in historical maps (Imago 81; fig. 3, and F, fig. 5; Zunica, 1974). In 1531, the Sborador della Mira was completed (fig. 3); it was a diversionary canal, through which the Brenta went into the Cornio Canal, then in the Canal Maggiore, leading to the lagoon of Malamocco; it was closed in 1540. In the same year, the Senate decided a new displacement of the Brenta mouth through the excavation of a new river bed involving the lower tracts of Brenta and Bacchiglione rivers; both rivers were planned to go into the Toro Canal and, together, to debouch at the Port of Brondolo (Imago 86). In 1554, the construction of the artificial embankment Parador di Brondolo started with the aim to separate the lagoons of Venice and Brondolo; it was completed in 1577, totally expelling the water of Brenta and Bacchiglione from the Lagoon of Chioggia (Imago 66; Favero et al., 1988). The lagoon of Brondolo (fig. 5), closed to the sea, in a couple of century transformed in a fresh water coastal lake, lately silted up.

15In that time, the Brenton was just a relic of the Mediaeval Brenta; today it is witnessed by some tracts of ditches and canals that flow from Corte to Brondolo, parallel to the Brenta Nova. It was continuously dredged in order to canalise the fluvial waters that, due to the low gradient of the artificial canal, periodically inundated the surrounding lands (Bortolami, 2003). All the attempts to prevent the floods were ineffective and the Venetians were forced again to strongly provide; in 1610 they started the digging of the Taglio Novissimo (fig. 5), a new straight canal, east of the Brenta Nova and parallel to the inner lagoonal margin, carried out in 1611 to convey the water from Brenta Magra, Muson, Bottenigo, Volpago, Bionca and Tergola and make them flowing outside the lagoon (Imago 127, 196, 210); it coincides with the part of the lagoonal boundary (the Conterminazione), ordered on 30th November 1610 (Imago 94) to officially mark the border of the lagoon and finished only in 1791. The Taglio Novissimo represents the very last intervention of the Republic of Venice on the southern sector of the lagoon; only in 1840, as a consequence of the more and more frequent and violent floods by Brenta and Bacchiglione, the Brenta River was rechanneled again into the artificial canal Brenta vecchia (fig. 5), the present Cavetta, to the Port of Chioggia (Zunica, 1971, 1974). The introduction of the river into the lagoon determined the development of a lagoonal delta, more than 30 km2 wide, and to the partial interment of the lagoonal channels (Zunica, 1974). Part of this territory was lately reclaimed and it was given the name Bonifica Delta Brenta. The southern branch of the Brenta Mouth (Brenta Vecchio) was connected with the northern branch of the Adige mouth, in correspondence of the Isola Bacucco. A new cut at the end of the 19th c. definitively deactivated the Brenta Vecchio, reducing the final tract from 5 km to 2 km in length.

Case Study 2: Sile and Piave diversions

Geomorphological evolution of the low Piave river plain

16The low Piave river plain belongs to the terminal part of the Nervesa Megafan formed by the LGM Piave sediments. Here, the very intense LGM sedimentary phase stopped at around 19.5-19.0 ka cal. BP, showing a good connection between glacial activity and alluvial aggradation (Carton et al., 2009). The LGM alluvial plain of the low Piave River hosts a characteristic alternation of overbank, crevasse, natural-levee and floodplain deposits with common thin peat intercalations (Bondesan et al., 2004 a and b; Mozzi, 2005; Miola et al., 2006; Bondesan and Fontana, 2008; Bondesan et al., 2008b; Fontana et al., 2008; Carton et al., 2009). Peat formation in the LGM alluvial plain occurred in poorly drained depressions where organic production prevailed over alluvial minerogenic sediment delivery (Bondesan et al., 2003 a to c; Miola et al., 2006). After about 9 ka cal. BP, the Adriatic coastline shifted from the position today occupied by the Po delta to the north, following the post-glacial sea-level rise (Correggiari et al., 1996). The lagoons originated when the marine high-stand was reached, about 6-7 ka cal. BP (Favero and Serandrei Barbero, 1980; Serandrei Barbero et al., 2001; Canali et al., 2007; Amorosi et al., 2008). About 4 ka cal. BP a new phase of alluvial deposition started in the distal sector of the plain through the formation of alluvial ridges related to meander belts (fig. 6). For this reason, the inland sector, south and east of S. Donà di Piave, is mainly Holocene: the sedimentation is due to the fluvial deposition and to the deltas formation along the coast. Prevailing textures are sands, silty-sands and silt corresponding to overbank, natural-levee and crevasse deposits of the main fluvial ridges. The thickness of Holocene sediments burying Pleistocene surfaces varies from about 5 m, close to the channel belts, to 1-3 m over the floodplain sequence (Bondesan et al., 2008 a and b).

Fig. 6 – Geomorphological sketch map of the Piave coastal plain
Fig. 6 – Croquis géomorphologique de la plaine côtière de la Piave

Fig. 6 – Geomorphological sketch map of the Piave coastal plainFig. 6 – Croquis géomorphologique de la plaine côtière de la Piave

1: hydrography; 2: lagoonal channel; 3: lagoonal palaeochannel and palaeoriver; 4: alluvial ridge; 5: lagoon delta; 6: Holocene alluvial deposit; 7: Pleistocene alluvial deposit; 8: littoral sand (after Bondesan et al., 2004, modified).
1 : hydrographie ; 2 : chenaux lagunaires ; 3 : paléochenaux lagunaires et fluviatiles ; 4 : bourrelet alluvial ; 5 : delta fluvial endo-lagunaire ; 6 : alluvions holocènes ; 7 : alluvions pléistocènes ; 8 : sables marins (d’après Bondesan et al., 2004, modifié).

17The low Piave river plain is dominated by a large pre-Roman fluvial ridge which, downstream of S. Donà di Piave, splits in four branches, all of them marked by the presence of sand and silty-sand. The westernmost branch (Piave Vecchia), today rimming the Lagoon of Venice, formed by the Piave River fluvial avulsion occurred in the 6th c. AD after an important period of floods (Bondesan et al., 2004 a and b); it used to flow into the northern lagoon probably for some centuries (Bondesan and Meneghel, 2004) and was diverted in the 17th c. when the Sile River was artificially forced to flow in. There are several palaeochannels formed by the Piave River: one of the oldest can be recognised at Caposile where it entered the lagoon and its activity date to the end of the 2nd millennium BC (Bondesan and Meneghel, 2004). To the east, the two central ridges formed when the Piave River was diverted in 1534 (Taglio da Re) and in 1664 (present Piave River-Taglio di Cortellazzo; fig. 6) so they have an artificial origin, even though they used for part of their path some former natural swampy canals, as is quite well visible in the coastal reach of the Piave River where it forms some meanders. The easternmost one is the Piveran-Cittanova ridge which is about 2 km wide and quite flat. The Roman road Via Annia is partially buried by the sediments forming the ridge (Barozzi et al., 1884). Some important archaeological sites spanning from Bronze Age to Middle Ages (Blake et al., 1988; Favero and Salvatori, 1992) reveal an intense human settlement, especially during Roman antiquity. This branch was active since at least 4th millinium BC (Bondesan et al., 2008 a and b).

18The entire coastal belt between Port of Piave Vecchia and Port of S. Margherita is occupied by relics of ancient sandy dune ridges, sequences of spits and beach barriers. The orientation of the coastal dune ridges, now levelled, but still well recognisable through remote sensing, reliably match the position of the ancient coastline. Three Holocene delta lobes have been recognised. The oldest is a cuspate Piave palaeodelta developed just south east of Torre di Fine and dates between 7 and 5.5 ka cal. BP (Bondesan et al., 2003 a to c). A more recent palaeodelta of Sub-Boreal age has been recognised at Cortellazzo, some 4 km southwest from the previous one, less than 2 km inland immediately west of the present Piave River. It is formed by a dense network of coastal dune ridges, showing at least four stages of progradation/erosion (Rizzetto and Bondesan, 1999). The third delta is the most recent, formed at the Port of Piave Vecchia starting from Middle Ages (Castiglioni and Favero, 1987). The coastline is almost straight and the morphology of the sandy and flat beach is almost unaffected by the scarce sediment input to the sea. At present, the coast is experiencing a severe erosion and the only noticeable exception is evident nearby the west side of the Piave River mouth, where the dispersion plume of the discharged solid transport feds some bars (Bondesan et al., 2003 a to c). Some minor rivers and canals are mainly organised according to the dense hydraulic network for reclamation and irrigation which is the evidence of the ancient wetlands. All the area was swampy until the end of the 19th c., when drastic and extensive works for reclamation started, to its end around 1960-1970 (Bondesan and Meneghel, 2004). Reclamation induced rapid and widespread subsidence over large areas.

Late Piave River diversions

19The present course of the Piave River in the low plain represents the outcome of a long and complex series of natural avulsions occurred in historical time and human interventions since the 13th c. The hydraulic changes interested mostly the lower tract of the Piave River, from S. Donà di Piave to the mouth; moreover, fluvial banks and hydraulic diversions were realised along the high plain tract, downhill of the Nervesa water gap (fig. 1). All the workings were necessarily conditioned by the geomorphological setting of the plain, considering the topographic micro-morphology, slope and geological background.

20The principal aim of the Republic of Venice, since the 15th c., was above all the defence and the protection of the Lagoon of Venice; when the economical and administrative interest move to the mainland, the control and the management of the inner territories became important and the intervention were aimed also to the land preservation and reclamation. The very first important interventions date back to the 13th c., in the high plain, when in 1215, and after the breakage of the fluvial dams of Piave in 1317, a long wall on the right side of the Piave was built. It is well represented in historical maps and it is known as “Gran Murazzo” close to Nervesa (1312), following with the “Murazzo delle Mandre” (1370; Mattana, 1988). In the 15th c., one of the greatest hydraulic enterprise in the history of the Republic of Venice was performed: the excavation in 1446 of the Brentella Canal (also known as Piavesella) and its distributive network: a huge system of canals deriving water from the right bank of the Piave and distributing it over a large territory north of Treviso (fig. 1) through a very dense system of minor canals (the “seriole”; Bondesan et al., 2004 a and b). This artefact favoured the widespread human settlement and the industrial (above all water mills) and agricultural development of the entire area. The hydraulic network is well documented in the historical maps of the period, even though not all contained into the Imago DB (Imago 50).

21In the low plain, the first hydraulic work is the Fossetta Canal (fig. 7A), which was excavated in 1441 (even though some documents dates it back to 1100). It linked the Sile River to the Piave, crossing also some other minor effluent rivers as Meolo and Vallio (Pavanello, 1906). Since the 16th c. a number of historical maps illustrates as the water regulation on the plain between Sile and Piave attracted maximum attention from the Venetian engineers (Imago 9, 247), worried about the interference with the Lagoon of Venice. One of the first documents regarding the low Piave plain dates to 20th May 1532 when the (Collegio Veneto delle Acque, i.e., Venetian Board for Waters) approved the project for the excavation of a system of swampy rivers (Cava Zuccherina and Revedoli Canal) flowing parallel to the Adriatic coast (see present rectified Cavetta and Revedoli Canals, fig. 6), that should have served as waterways and diversions in case of flood (Conton, 1911; Caniato, 1985). They also approved the opening of the Portesin, Livenzuola and Cortellazzo inlets (fig. 7) to allow a rapid discharge of water. The testimony of the Cava Zuccherina is today only a trace of the palaeoriver bed, well recognisable by photointerpretation. Its presence is testified for the first time in 1430 in a document stating the permission to the landowner to excavate the Canale dell’Arco (lately Cava Zuccherina) and to keep it navigable to allow the transport of goods to Germany (Marcon, 1878). The 1534 is an important year for the Piave River: following the flood which caused a dangerous sedimentation into the lagoon and into the Sile River, on 7th March it was prescribed that a great embankment had to be erected from Ponte di Piave to Cava del Caligo (fig. 7) on the right bank of the Piave River: i.e. from the upper tract of the river to the northern rim of the Lagoon of Venice. Since the floods were very destructive, and considering that the embankment could not be enough to face the strength of the water, they decreed to dig a bypass called Taglio da Re on the left bank of the Piave, and a second one close to Jesolo, called Cavetta Canal, which connect since 1587 the Piave Vecchia to the Port of Cortellazzo. The connection with the Lagoon of Venice through the Caligo Canal was regulated by mean of a flood-gate being very often interested by sedimentation that was threating the northern lagoon.

Fig. 7 – Artificial fluvial diversions in the low Piave river plain
Fig. 7 – Détournements artificiels de cours d’eau dans la basse plaine de la Piave

Fig. 7 – Artificial fluvial diversions in the low Piave river plainFig. 7 – Détournements artificiels de cours d’eau dans la basse plaine de la Piave

A: 1550. B: 1599. C: 1650. D: 1699. 1: hydrography; 2: fluvial delta inside the lagoon; 3: mainland; 4: lake; 5: swamp; 6: old flow direction; 7: present coastline; 8: Piave Lake.
A : 1550. B : 1599. C : 1650. D : 1699. 1 : hydrographie ; 2 : delta fluvial endo-lagunaire ; 3 : zone continentale ; 4 : lac ; 5 : marécage ; 6 : ancien tracé fluvial ; 7 : trait de côte actuel ; 8 : Lac de la Piave.

22The fluvial route to the Friuli region was of paramount importance, so the Republic of Venice proposed an alternative route through a new canal (the Cavallino Canal) to connect the lagoon with the Piave (fig. 7). In 1563 the Cavallino Canal was terminated and in 1630 it became the only entering gate to the lagoon, after the closure of the Caligo Canal. In the frame of the great workings for the hydraulic regulation, after having discussed alternative proposals, in 1579 the Senate of the Republic decided to collects all the water coming from the Piave River through a new canal to be dug from San Donà to the sea, called Taglio da Re (fig. 7B). Contemporarily, all the rivers debouching into the northern lagoon were planned to be diverted into the old Piave riverbed (the present Piave Vecchia), in order to bring the solid discharge outside the lagoon; they were Zero, Dese, Marzenego, Sile, Vallio and Meolo rivers (Casti Moreschi, 1984). The Sile and the other rivers were forming large fluvial deltas inside the lagoon, depositing their sediments deep inside the lagoon up to Torcello Island (Imago 88; Favero and Serandrei Barbero, 1981). The original maps of Sabbadino (Imago 10, 40, 42, 52, 78, 128), one of the most important Venetian hydraulic engineers, show the different phases of the debate on the projects of the new Sile riverbed to preserve the northern lagoon from silting up; as a matter of fact, several projects were made with different solutions concerning the planimetric position of the new canal. The Taglio da Re remained incomplete and was never brought to reach the sea, being the works irregular and in delay. When the diversion of the Brenta River ended in 1610 with the excavation of the Taglio Nuovissimo, the Republic of Venice started again to manage the lower Piave tract, also because the sediment fluxes of the Piave were silting up the lagoon inlets, due to down drift coastal sediment transport.

23In 1615, the engineers Gallesi, Contini e Guberni were in charge of study the problem and concluded that: “the Piave river mouth has to be turned away from Port of Piave Vecchia through a new canal, being the Taglio da Re, useless and too expensive to complete; then, wooden poles and groins have to be placed along the littoral to protect the shore, as they did in Venice and Chioggia, to collect as much sand as they can…”. The Venetian hydraulic engineers understood that littoral and lagoonal inlets were filling up by the sand transported by the Piave, Livenza and even Tagliamento rivers, shifted southwestward by littoral transport. As a matter of fact, the problem in the 16th c. was the excessive sedimentary transport, opposite to what is happening nowadays due to the crisis triggered by the lack of sediments coming from rivers catchment (Surian et al., 2008, 2009). The project, coordinated by Bonotti (Imago 16, 17, 53), regarded a series of new organic measures (fig. 7C): (i) to bring the Livenza river mouth to Caorle through the Traghettino Canal, abandoning the old Livenza riverbed, the so-called “Livenza Morta”; (ii) to excavate a new great canal were to move the Piave, the Gran Taglio or Taglio di Cortellazzo, just south of San Donà di Piave and let it flow inside the existing large swamps, forming the Piave Lake; (iii) to elevate the river embankments (“arzerini”) damming the Piave Lake by the river banks of different rivers flowing across the low Piave plain; the sediments entering the big lake were supposed to fill the swamps and lagoons, slowly reclaiming the area; (iv) the whole network of swampy canals was modified, closing to the sea the Largon, Velai and Revedoli canals; (v) to dig a new canal between Cortellazzo and Livenzuola Port (never ended) in order to keep open the waterways to the north; (vi) to built flood-gates at the debouchment of the Piave River into the Piave Lake; (vii) to bring the Sile River inside the abandoned course of the Piave (Piave Vecchia; Bondesan and Furlanetto, 2004).

24In 1664, after 22 years of work, the river was diverted into the new Taglio di Cortellazzo and the Sile was led inside the Piave Vecchia. As P. Marcon (1878) reports about the Piave Lake: “The Piave took many days to enlarge and lay over the great marshes of Cortellazzo and Ribaga, before exiting through the Port of S. Margherita. In that way, a great lake formed (…). At the first rising of the water, the surrounding embankments were outbroken in many positions, so that they were immediately acknowledged as inadequate for their purpose”. This event, repeated in the following years, induced the Senate of the Republic to depress the level of the lake and to enforce the defenses workings around the Piave Lake (Imago 74, 18). This huge hydraulic project changed the natural environment characterised by a complex hydrographic network, with very low slopes (around 0.3-0.7‰) and wide marshlands. It would have been simpler to let the Piave flow to Port of Cortellazzo, but the aim was to avert as much as they can the river mouth from Venice. The sediments entering the Piave Lake were silting up the flowing paths, endangering the fishing activity. Because of the protest by the fishers of Caorle, they opened again the Port of Livenzuola, facilitating the water flow and the navigation. The silting and the development of swampy vegetation kept on being an obstacle to the way to the Port of S. Margherita. In 1683, following a bank collapse at Landrona, the Piave river flowed spontaneously toward Cortellazzo, conformably to its present course. The location of this latter, however, may have reflected a local favourable geomorphologic context, as it corresponds also to that of the palaeo Piave River. From now on, the Republic of Venice decided to let the river flow, concluding the century-long struggle to direct the Piave far from the lagoon.

Geomorphological consequences of the artificial fluvial diversions

25The human intervention in the hydraulic network deeply modified the morphology of the coastal portion of the Venetian Plain. Starting from the low Brenta plain we can identify the following geomorphological consequences due to specific human action; (i) the southward migration of the Brenta mouths avoided at first the silting up of the lagoon between Venice and the mainland, in particular the Fusina and Giudecca canals. When the mouth moved to Malamocco, the inlet was poorly navigable by ships. Again, moving the mouth outside the lagoon set the openings free from sand. As a consequence, the reduced solid discharge dramatically lowered the sedimentary budget triggering erosive processes by tidal currents, so that the southern lagoon suffered a reduction of emerged land, reducing the salt marshes in Valle Millecampi and eroding the fluvial ridges present inside the lagoon (Imago 71, 81 at 1542 compared with 94, 210 at 1692). For the same reason, the inner deltas were progressively eroded (Imago 80, at 1534 compared with 70, 85 at 1546/1556); (ii) the presence of the Brenta mouth at Conche in 1507-1540 and in 1840-1896 generated a large delta, more than 30 km2 wide (Imago 81) and partially buried the Port of Chioggia; (iii) when the mouth was moved to the Port of Brondolo, the lagoon was silted up and the littoral showed a strong advance forming a cuspate delta; (iv) the excavation of the Brenta Nova elongated the river tract, significantly lowering the longitudinal slope, thus causing repeated flood upstream; (v) the excavation of the Taglio Nuovissimo definitely marked the lagoonal boundary, preventing any other natural margin fluctuation and reclaiming the inner land; (vi) the extensive land reclamation drastically changed the characteristics of this territories, deleting lagoons and swamps, re-organising completely the minor hydrographic network and triggering important phenomena of subsidence, causing along time the surface lowering for some metres (Carbognin and Tosi, 2003).

26In the low Piave river plain, we can summarise the geomorphological changes induced by fluvial diversions as follow: (i) the excavation of the Taglio del Sile acted as the Nuovissimo to the south, stiffening the lagoon margin. Having moved the mouth outside the lagoon, the inner delta was progressively eroded and the surface lowered due to sediment compaction; (ii) the formation of the Piave Lake caused 20-40 cm deposition of sandy-silt and silty-clay sediments over the lake floor. Where the Taglio di Cortellazzo entered the lake a large fluvial ridge generated, because of the lowering of fluvial current (see Eraclea, fig. 7). The closure of the coastal inlets determined the burying of the Porto of Livenzuola and of part of the coastal lakes. Then, the turning of the Livenza to Port of S. Margherita moved the centre of sedimentation, closing the Lagoon of Caorle. The former riverbed was deactivated, being today the Livenza Morta (“Dead Livenza”); (iii) the Taglio da Re and the Taglio di Cortellazzo formed two fluvial ridges over the flood plain and the floor of the marshes, still well recognisable in the geomorphological map (fig. 7). Part of the former wetlands were thus buried and hydraulically separated; (iv) with the turning of the Piave mouth from Port of Piave Vecchia to Port of Cortellazzo, the fluvial sedimentation was diverted from the Lido inlet of the Lagoon of Venice. The sedimentary load determined an advance of the littoral. From the beginning of the last century, because of the lack of solid transport, the entire north Adriatic coast is suffering a strong erosion (Zunica, 1971; Fontolan, 1996, 2001); (v) the abandon of Caligo Canal determined a reduction into the sedimentation in the northern lagoon in the event of floods; (vi) as it happened also in the Brenta plain, the land reclamation deeply transformed this area reducing at first lagoons and swamps, that have been completely dried up in the 20th c.; the subsidence determined a general lowering of the surfaces. The two areas, lower Brenta and lower Piave are the two main centre of sinking for subsidence (Carbognin and Tosi, 2003).

Conclusions

27The historical maps have been demonstrated to be a powerful tool for geomorphological analysis and palaeohydrographic reconstruction. The case of Venice is particularly effective due to the extraordinary number of maps available. They were considered paramount in administrative procedures for territorial management by the Senate of the Republic and for this reason a very important cartographical school developed in Venice, especially during the 16th and 17th c.

28The impressive number of maps illustrates probably the largest and longer series of artificial fluvial diversion on a single territory in Italy, particularly fragile in its environmental components. Historical maps are usually considered reliable starting from the 18th c. when the maps were drawn according to geographical projections, but we demonstrated that even the most “pictorial” maps dating to the 15th c. can be georeferenced if compared with elements that we can recognise in modern topographical and geomorphological maps. For this purpose, an integrated approach was adopted, using many different geographical databases and the especially created “Forma DB”. Of course, the more geometric was the map, the better the georeferentiation. In some cases, to get valuable results, we made separated georeferentiation for single small stretches of the map. The “Imago DB” gave the opportunity to reconstruct geometrically the position of the ancient hydrographic element, dating them very precisely thanks to the adopted validation procedures. The great amount of information coming from historical maps has been filtered and scored according to the consistency of the maps themselves. Then, the results are summarised in very detailed synoptic maps that report the geomorphological setting of the Lagoon of Venice and its mainland over two centuries.

29The studied area, belonging to Brenta and Piave rivers, has shown a great complexity of fluvial diversions and hydrographic interventions that caused an extensive territorial change. This transformation has been monitored through the last five centuries thanks to the historical maps, helping in reconstructing the cause-effect morphogenetic processes. This is particularly true for the Brenta sector, where the original environment has been submerged by marine ingression and buried by the extensive landfills realised for the industrial port of Venice. The historical maps constitute the only attestation of the ancient morphology, allowing to precisely reconstruct the lagoonal inner border and the salt marshes extension. Today the Venetian Plain is a completely artificial system; the only present active process is subsidence so it is not easy to study the short-term geomorphological changes without a diachronic cartographical support. The map analysis allowed a semi-quantitative morphometric approach (not illustrated in this paper), where, for example, areal dimension of forms such as wetlands, tidal marshes, tidal flats, lagoons, deltas could be measured and compared in their evolution. The comprehension of the role played by global change and anthropic transformations is the key to plan preservation measures in the lagoon and in the mainland, as the banks upraise, the coastal defenses, the artificial re-nourishments, both along the coast and inside the lagoon, the mobile dams of Mo.S.E., etc. Some cartographical analyses have been conducted in last years over small portion of territory, when it was necessary to asset the impact of infrastructural projects, demonstrating the effectiveness of the method. So, we can conclude that the monitoring through time by use of the historical map set of the “Imago DB” will help in the development of predictive models.

This research is part of the IMAGO Project (Interactive Maps Archives Gis Oriented) funded by Magistrato alle Acque-Consorzio Venezia Nuova in collaboration with the Archivio di Stato di Venezia (National Archives of Venice). The authors thank R. Rosselli and B. Bertani for providing core data and A. Vitturi for the French translation. They also gratefully thank C. Levorato for the effective help in map and figures editing. Finally, the authors wish to thank the referees Stefano Cremonini and Alessandro Fontana for the valuable comments and suggestions which improved the manuscript. Both the authors contributed equally to the paper.

Haut de page

Bibliographie

Amorosi A., Fontana A., Antonioli F., Primon S., Bondesan A. (2008) – Post-LGM sedimentation and Holocene shoreline evolution in the NW Adriatic coastal area. GeoActa 7, 41-67.

Averone A. (1911)Sull’antica idrografia veneta. Tipografia Aldo Manuzio, Mantova.

Barozzi N., Berchet G., Contin A., Stefani F. (1884) – Da Altino al Livenza. Archivio Veneto 14, 481-490.

Baso G., Scarso M., Tonini C. (2003) – La Laguna di Venezia nella cartografia storica a stampa del Museo Correr. Marsilio, Venezia, 13 p.

Bassan V., Favero V., Vianello G., Vitturi A. (1994) – Studio geoambientale e geopedologico del territorio provinciale di Venezia - parte meridionale. Provincia di Venezia, Venezia, 261 p.

Bevilacqua E. (1984) – L’uomo tra Piave e Sile. Università di Padova, Quaderni del Dipartimento di Geografia 2, 1-91.

Bevilacqua E. (1992) – La conterminazione della Laguna di Venezia considerata attraverso i documenti cartografici. Atti del Convegno di Studio nel Bicentenario della Conterminazione lagunare: storia, ingegneria, politica e diritto nella Laguna di Venezia. IVSLA Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, Venezia, 39-78.

Blake H., Bondesan A., Favero V., Finzi E., Salvatori S. (1988) – Cittanova - Heraclia 1987: risultati preliminari delle indagini geomorfologiche e paleogeografiche. Quaderni di Archeologia del Veneto 4, 112-135.

Bondesan A., Furlanetto P. (2004) – Tra Livenza e Piave. In Bondesan A., Meneghel M. (Eds.) Geomorfologia della Provincia di Venezia. Esedra, Padova, 215-237.

Bondesan A., Meneghel M. (Eds.) (2004)Geomorfologia della provincia di Venezia. Esedra, Padova, 516 p.

Bondesan A., Fontana A. (2008) – Sistema alluvionale del Piave. In Bondesan A., Primon S., Bassan V., Vitturi A. (Eds.) Le unità geologiche della provincia di Venezia. Cierre, Verona, 72-85.

Bondesan M., Castiglioni G.B., Elmi C., Gabbianelli G., Marocco R., Pirazzoli P.A., Tomasin A. (1995) – Coastal areas at risk from storm surges and sea-level rise in Northeastern Italy. Journal of Coastal Research 11, 1354-1379.

Bondesan A., Calderoni G., Rizzetto F. (2003a) – Geomorphologic evolution of the lower Piave river coastal plain during the Holocene. In Biancotti A., Motta M. (Eds.) Risposta dei processi geomorfologici alle variazioni ambientali. MURST, Atti del Convegno, Bologna 10-11/02/2000, Glauco Brigati, Genova, 125-133.

Bondesan A., Levorato C., Primon S. (2003b) – La geomorfologia del territorio di Arzergrande. In Rosada G. (Ed.) Arzergrande e Vallonga, la memoria storica di due comunità. Canova, Treviso, 13-24.

Bondesan A., Meneghel M., Miola A., Valentini G. (2003c) – Pollen analyses of lagoon and fluvial sediments of a 20 m core in the Lower Coastal River Piave Plain. Palaeoenvironmental Reconstruction from LGM to Present. Il Quaternario 16-1 bis, 183-192.

Bondesan A., Caniato G., Vallerani F., Zanetti M. (Eds.) (2004a) Il Piave. Cierre, Verona, 497 p.

Bondesan A., Meneghel M., Rosselli R., Vitturi A. (Eds.) (2004b)Carta Geomorfologia della Provincia di Venezia. 4 sheets, 1:50.000. Esedra, Padova.

Bondesan A., Primon S., Bassan V., Vitturi A. (Eds.) (2008a)Le unità geologiche della provincia di Venezia. Cierre, Verona, 177 p.

Bondesan A., Primon S., Bassan V., Fontana A., Mozzi P., Abbà T., Vitturi A. (Eds.) (2008b)Carta delle unità geologiche della provincia di Venezia. Cierre, Verona, 2 sheets, 160 p.

Bonomi S. (2001) – Il santuario di Lova di Campagna Lupia. In Orizzonti del Sacro, culti e santuari antichi in Altino e nel Veneto orientale. Quasar, Roma 245-254.

Bortolami S. (2003) – Il Brenta medievale nella pianura veneta. Note per una storia politico-territoriale. In Bondesan A., Caniato G., Gasparini D., Vallerani F., Zanetti M. (Eds.) Il Brenta. Sommacampagna, Cierre, 209-238.

Bosio L. (1967) – I problemi portuali della frangia lagunare veneta nell’antichità, Venetia. Studi miscellanei di archeologia delle Venezie, Cedam, Padova, 75-163.

Bosio L. (1983) – La Tabula Peutingeriana una descrizione pittorica del modo antico. Maggioli, Rimini, 234 p.

Bosio L. (1994) – Tito Livio e l’episodio di Cleonimo: il probabile luogo dello scontro fra patavini e greci. In Scarfì B.M. (Ed.) Studi di archeologia della X regio in ricordo di Michele Tombolani. “L’erma” di Bretschneider, Roma, 215-221.

Bruna V., Krovakova K., Nedbal V. (2010) – Historical landscapestructure in the spring area of the Blanice River, Southern Bohemia – an example of the importance of old maps. Acta Geodaetica et Geophysica Hungarica 45, 48-55.

Canali G., Capraro L., Donnici S., Rizzetto F., Serandrei Barbero R., Tosi L. (2007) – Vegetational and environmental changes in the eastern Venetian coastal plain (Northern Italy) over the past 80,000 years. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 253, 300-316.

Caniato G. (1985) – Fonti cartografiche per lo studio del territorio jesolano. Antichità Altoadriatiche, Studi Jesolani 27, 49-64.

Caniato G. (1995) – L’organismo delicato: il governo idraulico e ambientale. In Caniato G., Turri E., Zanetti M. (Eds.) La laguna di Venezia. Sommacampagna, Cierre, 227-247.

Caniato G. (1997) – Il controllo delle acque. In Benzoni G., Cozzi G. (Eds.) Storia di Venezia: VII. La Venezia barocca. Treccani, Roma, 479-505.

Cantile A. (Ed.) (2004) Il territorio nella società dell’informazione. Dalla cartografia ai sistemi digitali. Istituto Geografico militare, Firenze, 238 p.

Capuis L. (1994) – Il territorio a sud di Padova in epoca preromana. In Scarfi B.M. (Ed.) Studi di archeologia della X regio in ricordo di Michele Tombolani. “L’Erma” di Bretschneider, Roma, 73-84.

Carbognin L., Tosi L. (2003) – Il progetto ISES per l’analisi dei processi di intrusione salina e subsidenza nei territori meridionali delle Province di Padova e Venezia. CNR-ISDGM, Venezia, 95 p.

Carton A., Bondesan A., Fontana A., Meneghel M., Miola A., Mozzi P., Primon S., Surian N. (2009) – Geomorphological evolution and sediment transfer in the Piave River system (northeastern Italy) since the Last Glacial Maximum. Géomorphologie: relief, processus, environnement 3, 155-174.

Casti Moreschi E. (1984) – Utilizzazione delle acque e organizzazione del territorio. In Bevilacqua E. (Ed.) L’uomo tra Piave e Sile. Quaderni del Dipartimento di Geografia dell’Università di Padova 2, 25-74.

Castiglioni G B. (1999) – Geomorphology of the Po plain. Geografia Fisica e Dinamica Quaternaria supplement III, 7-20.

Castiglioni G.B., Favero V. (1987) – Linee di costa antiche ai margini orientali della Laguna di Venezia e ai lati della foce attuale del Piave. Istituto Veneto di Scienze Lettere ed Arti, Commissione di Studio dei Provvedimenti per la Conservazione e Difesa della Laguna e della Città di Venezia. Rapporti e Studi, 10, 17-30.

Castiglioni G.B., Pellegrini G.B. (2001) Note illustrative della carta geomorfologica della Pianura Padana. Geografia Fisica e Dinamica Quaternaria supplement IV, 207 p.

Castiglioni G.B., Girardi A., Rodolfi G. (1987) – Le tracce degli antichi percorsi del Brenta per Montà e Arcella nei pressi di Padova: studio geomorfologico. Memorie Scienze Geologiche 39, 29-149.

Cavazzana Romanelli F., Casti Moreschi E. (1983) Laguna, lidi, fiumi: esempi di cartografia storica commentata. In Ministero per i Beni Culturali e Ambientali, Archivio di Stato di Venezia- Regione Veneto, Dipartimento per l’Informazione-I.R.R.S.A.E. Veneto. Tipografia Helvetia, Venezia, 88 p.

Cessi R. (Ed.) (1930) – Discorsi sopra la laguna.di Cristoforo Sabbadino. In Antichi scrittori di idraulica veneta, vol. II, parte I. Premiate Officine grafiche C. Ferrari, Venezia, 240 p.

Cessi R. (1931) – Venezia e la sua laguna. In La laguna di Venezia, volume I. Premiate Officine grafiche C. Ferrari, Venezia, 1-39.

Cessi R. (1936) – Alvise Cornaro e la bonifica veneziana nel secolo XVI, in Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. Rendiconti, VI, XII.

Cessi R. (Ed.) (1941) – Scritture sopra la laguna di Alvise Cornaro e Cristoforo Sabbadino. In Antichi scrittori di idraulica veneta, vol. II, parte II. Premiate Officine grafiche C. Ferrari, Venezia, 174 p.

Cessi R. (1943a) – Il problema della Brenta dal secolo XII al secolo XV. In La laguna di Venezia, 2 (1), p. IV, t. VII, 3 ss.

Cessi R. (1943b) – Il problema della Brenta dal secolo XII al secolo XV. Lo sviluppo dell’interramento nella laguna settentrionale e il problema del Piave e del Sile fino al secolo XV. In La laguna di Venezia, vol. I. Premiate Officine grafiche C. Ferrari, Venezia, 79-108.

Cessi R. (1943c) La Repubblica di Venezia e il problema adriatico. A. Milani, Padova, 359 p.

Cessi R., Spada N. (Eds.) (1952)La difesa idraulica della Laguna Veneta nel sec. XVI, Relazioni dei Periti. In Antichi scrittori di idraulica veneta, III. Premiate Officine grafiche C. Ferrari, Venezia, 97 p.

Cisotto L. (1968) – Confronti fra lo stato attuale della laguna di Venezia e quello risultante da una carta del 1534 e da altri documenti relativi alla vecchia laguna rinascimentale. Bollettino del Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Venezia 18, 69-89.

Conton L. (1911) – Le antichità romane della Cava Zuccarina. Ateneo Veneto 34, 43-68.

Correggiari A., Roveri M., Trincardi F. (1996) – Late Pleistocene and Holocene evolution of the North Adriatic Sea. Il Quaternario 9, 697-704.

Cremonini S., Samonati E. (2009) – Value of ancient cartography for Geoenvironmental Purposes. A case study from the Po River Delta Coast (Italy). Geografia fisica e Dinamica Quaternaria 32, 135-144.

D’Alpaos L. (2010)L’evoluzione morfologica della Laguna di Venezia attraverso la lettura di alcune mappe storiche e delle sue carte idrografiche. Europrint, Quinto di Treviso, 105 p.

Dorigo W. (1983) Venezia. Origini, ipotesi e ricerche sulla formazione della città. Electa Fantoni Grafica di Venezia, Venezia, vol. 1-2-3, pages.

Dorigo W. (1994)Venezie sepolte nella terra del Piave: Duemila anni fa fra il doce e il salso. Viella, Roma, 440 p.

Favero V. (1983) – Evoluzione della Laguna di Venezia ed effetti indotti da interventi antropici sulla rete fluviale circumlagunare. In Ministero LL PP – Magistrato alle Acque (Eds.) Atti del Convegno Laguna, fiumi, lidi: cinque secoli di gestione delle acque nelle Venezie. Venezia, 10-12 giugno 1983. La Press, Fiesso d’Artico, memoria 2-18, 1-18.

Favero V. (1989)Naviglio Brenta. Provincia di Venezia, Corbo e Fiore editori, Venezia, 5, 8-10.

Favero V., Serandrei Barbero E. (1978) – La sedimentazione olocenica nella piana costiera tra Brenta ed Adige. Memorie della Società Geologica Italiana 19, 337-343.

Favero V., Serandrei Barbero E. (1980) – Origine ed evoluzione della laguna di Venezia – bacino meridionale. Lavori della Società Veneziana di Scienze Naturali 5, 49-71.

Favero V., Serandrei Barbero R. (1981) – Evoluzione paleoambientale della Laguna di Venezia nell’area archeologica tra Burano e Canale S. Felice. Lavori della Società Veneziana di Scienze Naturali 6, 119-134.

Favero V., Serandrei Barbero R. (1983) – Oscillazioni del livello del mare ed evoluzione paloambientale della Laguna di Venezia nell’area compresa tra Torcello e il margine lagunare. Lavori della Società Veneziana di Scienze Naturali 8, 83-102.

Favero V., Salvatori S. (1992) – Le indagini archeologiche a Civitas Nova. Appunti per una valutazione della distrubuzione antropica nell ‘area veneta orientale dalla protostoria all’alto medioevo. In Tipologia di insediamento e distribuzione antropica nell’area veneto-istriana dalla protostoria all’alto medioevo, Atti del Seminario di studio, Asolo, 3-5 novembre 1989. Edizioni del Vento, Monfalcone, 237-241.

Favero V., Parolini R., Scattolin M. (1988)Morfologia storica della laguna di Venezia. Comune di Venezia, Assessorato all’Ecologia. Arsenale Editrice, Venezia, 79 p.

Fersuoch L. (1995)S.Leonardo in Fossa Mala e altre fondazioni medievali lagunari. Restituzione territoriale, storica e archeologica. Jouvence, Venezia, 113 p.

Fontana A., Mozzi P., Bondesan A. (2008) Alluvial megafans in the Venetian–Friulian Plain (north-eastern Italy): Evidence of sedimentary and erosive phases during Late Pleistocene and Holocene. Quaternary International 189, 71-90.

Fontolan G. (1996) – Dissesti costieri ed erosione del litorale veneziano. In Atti del Convegno La prevenzione del rischio idraulico in provincia di Venezia, Venezia, 4 November 1996. Provincia di Venezia, Venezia, 2-27.

Fontolan G. (2001)Programma di previsione e prevenzione in materia di protezione civile. Rischio da mareggiata. Provincia di Venezia, Assessorato Protezione Civile, Venezia, 92 p.

Furlanetto P. (in press) – Geoarcheologia. La carta delle unità di paesaggio geo-archeologico della provincia di Venezia. In Vitturi A. (Ed.) Atlante geologico della Provincia di Venezia.

Furlanetto P., Primon S. (2004) – La cartografia storica. In Bondesan A., Meneghel M. (Eds.) Geomorfologia della provincia di Venezia. Esedra, Padova, 73-83.

Furlanetto P., Bondesan A., Rosselli R., Pacquola S., Rasador A. (2004) – Progetto Imago: la banca dati della cartografia storica della laguna di Venezia realizzata dal Magistrato alle Acque. Atti 8 conferenza Nazionale Asita, 14-17 dicembre, Roma. Artestampa, Varese, 1005-1110.

Furlanetto P., Bondesan A., Levorato C., Rosselli R., Bertani B. (2009) – Il Progetto Imago: la ricostruzione della laguna e dell’entroterra veneziano attraverso l’impiego della cartografia storica. Atti 13 Conferenza nazionale Asita, 1-4 dicembre 2009, Fiera del Levante, Bari. Artestampa, Varese, Poster 2.5.9., 2 p.

Giandon P., Ragazzi F., Vinci I., Fantinato L., Garlato A., Mozzi P., Bozzo G.P. (2001) – La carta dei suoli del bacino scolante in laguna di Venezia. Bollettino della Società Italiana della Scienza del Suolo 50, 273-280.

Ghezzo M., Guerzoni S., Cucco A., Umgiesser G. (2010) – Changes in Venice Lagoon dynamics due to construction of mobile barriers. Coastal Engineering 57, 694-708.

Hopley C.A., Jones B.G., Puotinen M. (2007) – Assessing the recent (1834-2002) morphological evolution of a rapidly prograding delta within a GIS framework: Macquarie Rivulet delta, Lake Illawarra, New South Wales. Australian Journal of Earth Sciences 54, 1047-1056.

Jabaloy-Sanchez A., Lobo F.J., Azor A., Barcenas P., Fernandez-Salas L.M., Del Rio V.D., Perez-Pena J.V. (2010) Human-driven coastline changes in the Adra River deltaic system, southeast Spain. Geomorphology 119, 9-22.

Kovacs G. (2010) – The advantages of using the second military survey maps in fluvial studies. Acta Geodaetica et Geophysica Hungarica 45, 64-70.

Marcon P. (1878) – Cenni cronologici delle principali vicende cui andarono soggetti i fiumi del Veneto negli ultimi loro tronchi conterminanti la laguna, destinati a servire di guida alla carta idrografico storica della diversione dei fiumi nella veneta laguna, e delle principali opere marittime. In Stefinlongo G.B. (Ed.) Ufficio Idrografico e Mareografico, Venezia, 297-301.

Marinelli G. (1881) – Saggio di cartografia della regione veneta. Atti della Deputazione Veneta di Storia Patria, Venezia, 444 p.

Mattana U. (1988) - Evoluzione del paesaggio nella fascia delle risorgive del Veneto attraverso i documenti cartografici. In Taccuini 5 Alla ricerca di Clio. CIDI Triveneto, 128-134.

Miola A., Albanese D., Valentini G., Corain L. (2003) – Pollen data for a biostratigraphy of LGM in the Venetian Po Plain. Il Quaternario 16, 21-25.

Miola A., Bondesan A., Corain L., Favaretto S., Mozzi P., Piovan S., Sostizzo I. (2006) – Wetlands in the Venetian Po Plain (north-eastern Italy) during the Last Glacial Maximum: vegetation, hydrology, sedimentary environments. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 141, 53-81.

Mozzi P. (2005) – Alluvial plain formation during the Late Quaternary between the southern Alpine margin and the Lagoon of Venice (northern Italy). In Bondesan A., Mozzi P., Surian N. (Eds.) Montagne e Pianure. Geografia Fisica e Dinamica Quaternaria supplelment 7, 219-230.

Mozzi P. (2008) – L’unità di Dolo. In Bondesan A., Primon S., Bassan V., Fontana A., Mozzi P., Abbà T., Vitturi A. (Eds.) Carta delle unità geologiche della provincia di Venezia. Cierre, Verona, 2 sheets, 120-122.

Mozzi P., Furlanetto P. (2004) – La geomorfologia tra Naviglio Brenta e Bacchiglione. In Bondesan A., Meneghel M. (Eds.) Geomorfologia della provincia di Venezia. Esedra, Padova, 269-297.

MURST (1997)Carta geomorfologica della Pianura Padana. 3 fogli, scala 1: 250.000, S.el.ca., Firenze.

Orlando E. (2008) – Altre Venezie. Il Dogado veneziano nei secoli XIII e XIV (giurisdizione, territorio, giustizia e amministrazione). Istituto veneto di scienze, lettere ed arti, Venezia, 483 p.

Pavanello G. (1906) – La strada e il traghetto della Fossetta. Ateneo Veneto, Venezia, 142 p.

Pesavento Mattioli S. (1987) – Un deposito di anfore romane a Cadoneghe (Padova). Quaderni di Archeologia del Veneto III, 152-166.

Petrovszki J., Meszaros J. (2010) – The great Hungarian plain in the sheets of the Habsburg military surveys and some historical maps – a case study of the Koros/Cris drainage basin. Acta Geodaetica et Geophysica Hungarica 45, 56-63.

Petrovszki J., Timar G. ( 2010) – Channel sinuosity of the Koros River system, Hungary/Romania, as possible indicator of the neotectonic activity. Geomorphology 122, 223- 230.

Podobnikar T. (2009) – Georeferenceing and quality assessment of Josephine survey maps for the mountainous region in the Triglav National Park. Acta Geodaetica et Geophysica Hungarica 44, 49-66.

Rizzetto F., Bondesan A. (1999)Antichi apparati di foce nel tratto di pianura costiera del basso Piave. Convegno: Le Pianure. Conoscenza e Salvaguardia, Regione Emilia-Romagna, Ferrara, 8-11 novembre 1999, abstract, 202-203.

Rosada G. (1979) – I fiumi e i porti nella Venezia orientale; osservazioni intorno ad un famoso passo pliniano. Aquileia Nostra 50, 174-255.

Rosada G. (1980) – Portus Aedro-Vallonga (Padova). Archeologia Veneta III, 69-96.

Rosada G. (2003)Tra fiumi e mare. Per una storia di una terra anfibia. Arzergrande e Vallonga. La memoria storica di due comunità, Canova, Treviso, 27-38.

Rossi M. (Ed.) (2005)Kriegskarte, 1798-1805: il Ducato di Venezia nella carta di Anton von Zach. Fondazione Benetton Studi Ricerche, Grafiche V. Bernardi, 2 volumes, 784 p.

Scarso M. (Ed.) (2002) Il Veneto nella cartografia, evoluzione, produzione e utilizzazione della carta tecnica. Il poligrafo, Padova, 157 p.

Serandrei Barbero R., Lezziero A., Albani A., Zoppi U. (2001) – Depositi tardo-pleistocenici ed olocenici nel sottosuolo veneziano: paleoambienti e cronologia. Il Quaternario 14, 9-22.

Surian N., Ziliani L., Cibien L., Cisotto A., Baruffi F. (2008) – Variazioni morfologiche degli alvei dei principali corsi d’acqua veneto-friulani negli ultimi 200 anni. Il Quaternario 21-1B, 279-290.

Surian N., Ziliani L., Comiti F., Lenzi M. A., Mao L. (2009) – Channel adjustments and alteration of sediment fluxes in gravelbed rivers of north-eastern Italy: potentials and limitations for channel recovery. River Research and Applications 25, 551-567.

Szekely B. (2009) – Rediscovering the old treasures of cartography - what an almost 500-year-old map can tell to a geoscientist. Acta Geodaetica et Geophysica Hungarica 44, 3-16.

Tiepolo M.F., Morozzo Della Rocca R. (Eds.) (1972)Venezia. Serenissima Repubblica, dalle origini al 1797. Antonino Giuffrè, Milano, 62 p.

Tiepolo M.F. (1992) – La conterminazione e la documentazione conservata all’ Archivio di Stato a Venezia. In Conterminazione lagunare; storia, ingegneria, politica e diritto nella Laguna di Venezia. Ist. Veneto SS.LL.AA, Venezia, 80-129.

Tiepolo M.F. (Ed.) (1984)Cartografia, disegni, miniature delle magistrature veneziane. Catalogo mostra 30 Giugno/30 Settembre, Ministero dei beni Culturali e Ambientali - Archivio di Stato di Venezia, Venezia, 160 p.

Timar G., Sumegi P., Horvath F. (2005a) – Fluvial style changes during the last glacial-interglacial transition in the middle Tisza valley (Hungary). Proceedings of the Geologists Association 121, 180-194.

Timar G., Sumegi P., Horvath F. (2005b) – Late Quaternary dynamics of the Tisza River: Evidence of climatic and tectonic controls. Tectonophysics 410, 97-110.

Valerio V. (2007)Cartografi veneti, mappe uomini e istituzioni per l’immagine e il governo del territorio. Editoriale Programma, Padova, 263 p.

Vallerani F. (Ed.) (2008)Dalle praterie vallive alla bonifica. Cartografia storica ed evoluzione del paesaggio del Veneto orientale dal ‘500 ad oggi. Grafiche V. Bernardi, Pieve di Soligo, 287 p.

Zamolyi A., Szekely B., Draganits E., Timar G. (2010) – Neotectonic control on river sinuosity at the western margin of the Little Hungarian Plain. Geomorphology 122, 231-243.

Zendrini B. (1811)Memorie storiche dello stato antico e moderno delle lagune di Venezia e di que fiumi che restarono divertiti per la conservazione delle medesime. Arnoldo Forni Editore, Padova, 372-410.

Zunica M. (1971) Le spiagge del Veneto. Centro di Studi per la Geografia Fisica, Università Di Padova, Tipografia Antoniana, Padova, 144 p.

Zunica M. (1974) – “La bonifica Delta Brenta”. Un esempio di trasformazione del paesaggio nella Laguna di Venezia. Rivista Geografica Italiana LXXXI, 3. Arti Grafiche Giorgi & Gambi, Firenze, 60 p.

Haut de page

Annexe

Version abrégée en français

Au XVe s., la lagune de Venise faisait partie d’un vaste (largeur jusqu’à 20 km) système de lagunes et de marécages côtiers bordant la partie occidentale de la côte adriatique septentrionale. Cette bande de zones humides constituait la marge côtière de la grande plaine du Pô et de la plaine du Frioul-Vénétie au sud des Alpes. Les lagunes se développaient entre les principaux cours drainant la plaine alluviale. Du sud au nord, la zone d’étude s’étend du fleuve Adige au fleuve Livenza. L’extension de la lagune a toujours été déterminée par la présence de delta fluviatiles et de passes lagunaires et son développement a été influencé par la charge sédimentaire et la dynamique tidale (Miola et al., 2003 ; Bondesan et Meneghel, 2004 ; Mozzi, 2005 ; Bondesan et al., 2008 a et b ; Fontana et al., 2008). Jusqu’en 1500, les cours d’eau Brenta, Marzenego, Zero, Dese et Sile débouchaient dans la lagune, contribuant ainsi à la formation de deltas lagunaires et, par l’apport d’alluvions, à l’extension des marais lagunaires, à la fossilisation des paléochenaux et l réduction des nappes d’eau (Favero et al., 1988). Les entrées des ports étaient souvent menacées par la diminution graduelle des fonds lagunaires et par la formation de barres d’embouchure constituant des obstacles pour les bateaux rentrant et sortant de la lagune. Cette situation menaçant la puissance économique et commerciale de Venise, la République s’engagea alors dans une lutte épique pour détourner le cours des fleuves, en les éloignant de la lagune de Venise (Cisotto, 1968 ; Favero et Serandrei Barbero, 1980 ; Cavazzana Romanelli et Casti Moreschi, 1983 ; Favero, 1983 ; Bevilacqua, 1992 ; Tiepolo, 1992 ; Caniato, 1995, 1997). La plus grande partie des projets a été achevée entre le XVIe et le XVIIe s. : les cours d’eau Brenta, Sile, Piave et Livenza ont été détournés mais les cours d’eau Zero et Dese ont continué de déboucher dans la lagune. Le résultat de ces détournements fluviaux anthropiques fut la cause d’une transformation tout à fait radicale des équilibres hydrauliques et sédimentaires dans la lagune sa marge continentale (Zunica, 1971 ; Dorigo, 1983 ; Favero et al., 1988 ; Dorigo, 1994 ; Vallerani, 2008 ; D’Alpaos, 2010).

Les recherches conduites dans le cadre du Projet Imago (base de données cartographique de la lagune de Venise et de sa marge continentale), il a été possible de reconstituer les anciens aménagements hydrographiques et géomorphologiques de l’ensemble du territoire (plus de 2000 km² ; Furlanetto et Primon, 2004 ; Furlanetto et al., 2004, 2009). Plus de 7000 cartes, produites au cours des XVe, XVIe, XVIIe et XVIIIe s. par les Magistrature veneziane dei Savi Esecutori alle acque e dei Provveditori sopra i Beni Inculti et conservées par les Archives Nationales de Venise, ont été analysées. 356 plans représentatifs ont fait l’objet d’une étude analytique et intégrés à la base de données « Imago ». La base de données « Forma » a été créé dans le but de décrire d’une façon systématique et guidée les principaux éléments géomorphologiques représentés par la cartographie historique. Des fiches ont été conçues pour définir les caractères intrinsèques de chaque élément tel que représenté dans l’ancienne cartographie et perçu aujourd’hui dans la topographie et la géomorphologie. Les plus représentatives (numéro 45) ont été géoréférencées et redessinées (tab. 1). Ainsi, quatre cartes au 1/50000 décrivent les aménagements hydrographiques et morphologiques en 1550, 1600, 1650 et 1700 (fig. 4 et fig. 7). Sur la base de la carte actuelle comparée à celles de la moitié et de la fin des XVIe et XVIIe s., les cartes paléohydrographiques ont permis de préciser les directions des principaux écoulements fluviatiles, les projets réalisés et ceux jamais achevés, la délimitation de la marge interne de la lagune, l’extension de la lagune et des zones humides dulcicoles à salées. Deux exemples de détournement fluvial anthropique, ceux des fleuves Piave et Brenta aux XVIe et XVIIe s., détaillent les travaux effectués, leur position topographique précise et les impacts hydrogéomorphologiques.

Un arrêt de la sédimentation est observé du Tardiglaciaire jusqu’à 6 ka BP, suivi d’une reprise de la sédimentation aboutissant à la mise en place d’un réseau de bourrelets alluviaux. Dans le cas du fleuve Piave, la sédimentation holocène se produisit surtout le long de la côte ; dans celui de la Brenta, la sédimentation se produisit surtout dans le secteur oriental de la plaine au Pléistocène (Mozzi, 2005) puis dans le secteur occidental à l’Holocène (Bondesan et al., 2008 a et b ; Fontana et al., 2008 ; fig. 2). Des études géoarchéologiques récentes ont permis d’identifier, dater et relier avec les sources classiques les anciens tracés fluviatiles, dont les traces sont encore clairement visibles à travers les nombreux bourrelets alluviaux et chenaux fossiles (Mozzi et Furlanetto, 2004). Les anciens tracés de la Brenta sont caractérisés par un fonctionnement alternatif de phases d’activité et de d’abandon temporaire ou définitif. Les anciens tracés de la Brenta (connue comme Medoacus) d’après les études de Pline et de Strabon ont pu être reconnus (fig. 3). La migration des embouchures de la Brenta, de la Lagune centrale vers le sud, à partir du 1143 jusqu’à nos jours est le résultat d’interventions anthropiques par les Vénitiens, les différentes phases de détournement ayant conduit la Breta à ne plus déboucher dans la Lagune en 1895 (Cessi, 1943 a à c ; Bortolami, 2003 ; fig. 5). La Piave constituait une autre menace de la lagune de Venise car ses alluvions allaient remblayer la lagune septentrionale et l’embouchure lagunaire du Lido. Dans la basse plaine de la Piave, les interventions anthropiques ont débuté vers la fin de 1400 (Pavanello, 1906) pour s’achever en 1683 quand la Piave, après maints déplacements vers l’est, s’éloigne définitivement de la lagune de Venise (Bondesan et Furlanetto, 2004 ; fig. 7). Cent ans auparavant, la rivière Sile avait vu son tracé s’allonger vers l’extérieur de la Lagune on allant occuper l’ancien lit de la Piave.

Les résultats de ce travail ont permis d’acquérir des informations tout à fait précieuses sur les projets de détournement fluvial d’origine humaine, sur leurs phases de réalisation et sur leur efficacité au cours de temps. Les importantes transformations qui ont été ainsi produites sur le réseau fluvial et la lagune de Venise sont largement la cause des problèmes d’érosion et de sédimentation qui se sont succédés au cours des derniers siècles. Des zones assez étendues, documentées dans la cartographie historique comme lagunaires ou marécageuses, ont été assainies, de vastes secteurs côtiers ont été soumis à une intense érosion alors que le déplacement des bouches fluviales à l’intérieur de la lagune a souvent provoqué une importante sédimentation, cause de nombreux dangers.

Haut de page

Table des illustrations

Titre Fig. 1 – Scheme of the Late Quaternary depositional systems of the Venetian-Friulian PlainFig. 1 – Schéma des systèmes de dépôt quaternaires dans la Plaine Frioul-Vénétie
Légende 1: river; 2: fluvial scarp; 3: upper limit of the spring belt; 4: mountains and hills; 5: tectonic terraces; 6: endmoraines systems; 7: interfan and intermontane deposits; 8: deltaic-coastal systems; 9: groundwater-fed river. Grey-tone areas: A: Adige Alluvial Plain; B: Brenta megafan; C: Astico fan; D: Montebelluna megafan; E: Piave megafan; F: Monticano-Cervada-Meschio fan; G: Cellina fan; H: Meduna fan; I: Tagliamento megafan (after Fontana et al., 2008, modified).1 : rivière ; 2 : berge ; 3 : limite supérieure des sources de résurgence ; 4 : montagnes et collines ; 5 : terrasses tectoniques ; 6 : systèmes de moraines terminales ; 7 : dépôts d’intercône et d’interfluve : 8 : systèmes deltaïques-côtiers ; 9 : systèmes fluviaux associés aux sources de plaine. Zones en gris : A : plaine alluviale de l’Adige ; B : megacône du Brenta ; C : cône d’Astico ; D : megacône de Montebelluna : E : megacône du Piave ; F : cône du Monticano-Cervada-Meschio ; G : cône du Cellina ; H : cône du Meduna ; I : megacône du Tagliamento (d’après Fontana et al., 2008, modifié).
URL http://journals.openedition.org/geomorphologie/docannexe/image/9815/img-1.png
Fichier image/png, 914k
Titre Fig. 2 – Geomorphological sketch map of the distal sector of the Brenta PlainFig. 2 – Croquis géomorphologique du secteur distal de la plaine du Brenta
Légende 1: hydrography; 2: lagoonal channel; 3: lagoonal and fluvial palaeochannel; 4: alluvial ridge; 5: lagoon delta; 6: alluvial deposit; 7: littoral sand (after Bondesan et al., 2004, modified)1 : hydrographie ; 2 : chenaux lagunaires ; 3 : paléochenaux lagunaires et fluviatiles ; 4 : bourrelet alluvial ; 5 : delta fluviatile endo-lagunaire ; 6 : alluvions ; 7 : sables marins (d’après Bondesan et al., 2004, modifié).
URL http://journals.openedition.org/geomorphologie/docannexe/image/9815/img-2.png
Fichier image/png, 1018k
Titre Fig. 3 – Artificial fluvial diversions in the Low Brenta Plain during the 16th and 17th c. Fig. 3 – Détournements de cours d’eau artificiels dans la basse plaine de la Brenta au XVIe et au XVIIe s.
Légende A: 1550. B: 1599. C: 1650. D: 1699. 1: hydrography; 2: fluvial delta inside the lagoon; 3: mainland; 4: lake; 5: swamp; 6: old flow direction; 7: present coastline.A : 1550. B : 1599. C : 1650. D : 1699. 1 : hydrographie ; 2 : delta fluviatile endo-lagunaire ; 3 : zone continentale ; 4 : lac ; 5 : marécage ; 6 : ancien tracé fluviatile; 7 : trait de côte actuel.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/geomorphologie/docannexe/image/9815/img-3.png
Fichier image/png, 1,3M
Titre Fig. 4 – The fluvial and lagoonal flow direction of the Brenta from pre-Roman antiquity to Middle AgesFig. 4 – Direction des écoulements fluviaux et lagunaires du Brenta de l’antiquité pré-romaine au Moyen Âge
Légende 1: Iron Age; 2: Roman antiquity; 3: Middle Age; 4: palaeohydrography inferred from historical cartography (after Bondesan et al., 2004, modified).1 : Âge du Fer ; 2 : Antiquité romaine ; 3 : Moyen Âge ; 4 : paléohydrographie tirée de la cartographie historique (d’après Bondesan et al., 2004, modifié).
URL http://journals.openedition.org/geomorphologie/docannexe/image/9815/img-4.png
Fichier image/png, 870k
Titre Fig. 5 – The main flow direction of the Brenta River from 1143 to present day. Internal lagoonal margin and coastline inferred by historical cartographyFig. 5 – Direction des principaux écoulements de la Brenta de 1143 à nos jours. Marge interne de la lagune et ligne de rivage tirées de la cartographie historique (1763)
Légende 1: 16th c.; 2: 1763; 3: limit of the intertidal shoreline inferred from historical cartography (1763); 4: lagoonal fluvial deltas (A: Punta dei Lovi; B and C: Fusina mouth; D: Motte di Volpego; E: Canale Maggiore mouth; F: Canale Montalbano mouth; G: Delta Brenta reclamation; H: Taglio Nuovissimo mouth); 5: flow directions; 6: buried lagoon.1 : XVIe s. ; 2 : 1763 ; 3 : limite de la ligne de plage intertidale tirée de la cartographie historique ; 4 : deltas fluviaux lagunaires (A : Punta dei Lovi ; B et C : embouchure de Fusina ; D : Motte di Volpego ; E : embouchure du Canale Maggiore ; F : embouchure du Canale Montalbano ; G : assèchement du Delta Brenta ; H : embouchure du Taglio Nuovissimo) ; 5 : direction des écoulements fluviatiles ; 6 : lagune fossile.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/geomorphologie/docannexe/image/9815/img-5.png
Fichier image/png, 1,6M
Titre Fig. 6 – Geomorphological sketch map of the Piave coastal plainFig. 6 – Croquis géomorphologique de la plaine côtière de la Piave
Légende 1: hydrography; 2: lagoonal channel; 3: lagoonal palaeochannel and palaeoriver; 4: alluvial ridge; 5: lagoon delta; 6: Holocene alluvial deposit; 7: Pleistocene alluvial deposit; 8: littoral sand (after Bondesan et al., 2004, modified).1 : hydrographie ; 2 : chenaux lagunaires ; 3 : paléochenaux lagunaires et fluviatiles ; 4 : bourrelet alluvial ; 5 : delta fluvial endo-lagunaire ; 6 : alluvions holocènes ; 7 : alluvions pléistocènes ; 8 : sables marins (d’après Bondesan et al., 2004, modifié).
URL http://journals.openedition.org/geomorphologie/docannexe/image/9815/img-6.png
Fichier image/png, 3,0M
Titre Fig. 7 – Artificial fluvial diversions in the low Piave river plainFig. 7 – Détournements artificiels de cours d’eau dans la basse plaine de la Piave
Légende A: 1550. B: 1599. C: 1650. D: 1699. 1: hydrography; 2: fluvial delta inside the lagoon; 3: mainland; 4: lake; 5: swamp; 6: old flow direction; 7: present coastline; 8: Piave Lake.A : 1550. B : 1599. C : 1650. D : 1699. 1 : hydrographie ; 2 : delta fluvial endo-lagunaire ; 3 : zone continentale ; 4 : lac ; 5 : marécage ; 6 : ancien tracé fluvial ; 7 : trait de côte actuel ; 8 : Lac de la Piave.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/geomorphologie/docannexe/image/9815/img-7.png
Fichier image/png, 2,4M
Haut de page

Pour citer cet article

Référence papier

Aldino Bondesan et Paola Furlanetto, « Artificial fluvial diversions in the mainland of the Lagoon of Venice during the 16th and 17th centuries inferred by historical cartography analysis »Géomorphologie : relief, processus, environnement, vol. 18 - n° 2 | 2012, 175-200.

Référence électronique

Aldino Bondesan et Paola Furlanetto, « Artificial fluvial diversions in the mainland of the Lagoon of Venice during the 16th and 17th centuries inferred by historical cartography analysis »Géomorphologie : relief, processus, environnement [En ligne], vol. 18 - n° 2 | 2012, mis en ligne le 02 novembre 2014, consulté le 19 mars 2024. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/geomorphologie/9815 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/geomorphologie.9815

Haut de page

Auteurs

Aldino Bondesan

Dipartimento di Geografia - Università degli Studi di Padova - via del Santo 26 - 35123 Padova - Italy (aldino.bondesan@unipd.it)

Articles du même auteur

Paola Furlanetto

Akeo - via Beato Pellegrino 61 - 35137 Padova (paola.furlanetto@akeo.191.it)

Haut de page

Droits d’auteur

Le texte et les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés), sont « Tous droits réservés », sauf mention contraire.

Haut de page
Search OpenEdition Search

You will be redirected to OpenEdition Search