Pontine plane

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The south of the Pontic plain at Terracina (Parco Nazionale del Circeo)

The Pontine Plain , in Italian Agro Pontino (Romano) or historically Paludi Pontine (Pontine Marshes), is a former marshland in the Lazio region ( central Italy ) southeast of Rome . It extends along the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea , from which it is delimited by sand dunes , from Anzio to Terracina . To the northeast it is bounded by the Monti Lepini and the Monti Ausoni . The area is around 775 km². The Via Appia has crossed the plain since ancient times .

geology

The Pontine Plain is formed by a tectonic ditch , the associated nests (uplifts) are the mountain range in the east and the bottom under the dune chain that separates it from the sea. Until the late Pleistocene , the area was submerged in the Tyrrhenian Sea. Due to volcanic activity and multiple changes in sea level height ( regression and transgression ), a shallow lagoon was formed, which was separated from the sea by newly formed dunes and gradually silted up due to the sediment input from the mountains. The plain shows only a very slight gradient from the northwest to the southeast, so it slopes down slightly towards the mountains; Parts of the area are now just below sea level.

The swamp of the plain since ancient times

Sunset over the Pontine Marshes (painting by August Kopisch )

The Pontine Plain was probably originally settled by Latin tribes who lived around 500 BC. Were ousted by the people of the Volscians . Pliny reports that the Pontine Plain was built in the 5th century BC. Was a flourishing cultural landscape. Titus Livius passed on the names of 33 cities, including Suesse Pometia, the rich, legendary capital, the exact location of which has not yet been clarified. Trade relations with Rome from this period prove that the Volscians also cultivated grain and thereby produced surpluses for sale, so they were able to manage the necessary drainage of the area on a larger scale , which was difficult due to the topography . In the middle of the 4th century BC The area was subdued by the Romans after long armed conflicts with the Volscores. 357 BC The Tribus Pomptina (the name is derived from Pometia) arose, colonists were settled and 321 BC. The Via Appia built as a direct connection to Rome.

In the following centuries the Pontine Plain became increasingly boggy, presumably several factors came together: In addition to the destruction caused by the armed conflicts, which left parts of the plain and lay fallow, came the inexperience of the new settlers, who no longer had the knowledge to to continue to operate the drainage systems of the Volscians. In addition, there was very likely clear cutting and overexploitation of the forests on the mountains in the east. Because of their enormous demand for wood for shipbuilding and the Roman hot water heating, the Romans systematically cut down the forest on the mountain slopes, with the result that the humus soil was washed into the plain every winter and spring by soil erosion from countless streams. The mountain range consists of limestone, which was able to absorb large amounts of water through its numerous fissures and crevices until the vegetation layer was destroyed and then release it again over a longer period of time through the springs at the foot of the mountains. The three rivers Sisto, Uffente and Amazone now had to take in much more water at high tide, they often changed their bed and flooded larger areas. Since there is only one outflow from the plain into the sea at Terracina, the water masses back inland during floods and stormy seas. In addition, a rise in sea level and a general increase in precipitation due to climate change are cited as causes of the increasing swamp.

The tropical Anopheles mosquito , the carrier of malaria, spread. Since it contaminated the entire plain, the deadly disease made the plain uninhabitable far beyond the actual marshland. By 1900 the plain was largely depopulated.

The drainage

First attempts at draining

In the Pontine Marshes, painting by Arnold Böcklin , 1851

Already Caesar , some emperors after him and several popes ( sovereigns of the Papal States ) and Napoleon tried to drain the swamps. All attempts failed. No one succeeded in diverting the ground water and the incoming water masses. All plans were based on the assumption that all water would have to be collected in the deepest channel on the plain in order to drain into the sea. Since there was insufficient pumping capacity at the time, the plans proved to be technically impracticable.

On February 17, 1787, Goethe visited the swamps with his painter friend Tischbein and reported in his book Italian Journey that they “don't look as bad as they are commonly described in Rome”. He is interested in the drainage attempts, according to his observations, "a large and extensive company". This is probably where he got the inspiration for the scene in his Faust II :

A swamp drifts along the mountains
contaminates everything that has already been achieved;
to pull off the lazy pool too,
the last would be the greatest achievement.
I open spaces to millions.

Fedor von Donat and the Pontinische Syndikats GmbH at the end of the 19th century

At the end of the 19th century, a Prussian officer, Major Fedor Maria von Donat (1847–1919), had the crucial idea. He developed the plan to create a ring canal that would lead at the foot of the mountains to a dune cut in the height of Terracina and catch the tributaries from the mountains before they reached the plain. After that, he wanted to dry out the swamps within five years by pushing the bottom water up into the sea through a system of canals through pumping stations. He planned to generate the electricity required for this through dams in the mountains with hydropower plants. The German Patent Office patented the project under number 17 120.

Donat published his idea in Rome and Berlin. He managed to win Emil Rathenau for his project, who as General Director of AEG in Berlin had an interest in the market potential for electrical capital goods. Rathenau and some Berlin industrialists and financiers founded the Pontinische Syndikats GmbH in 1900 . 70 million gold marks were made available for the drainage development project. The prerequisite was that the Italian side would spend a similar amount.

In 1898, Fedor had resigned from Donat as battalion commander and had moved to Rome with his family. There he promoted his project to the government, the four large landowners, the financial circles and in the Vatican. He leased 240 hectares of swamp in Terracina and set up a model estate in Tenuta Ponte Maggiore . With the help of three driven by oxen ancient Egyptian Göpel works he bonifizierte the country that a high soil quality had more than 70 points, and led evidence that three harvests a year were possible. He protected his 80 workers from malaria with a daily dose of quinine . He invited the Roman correspondents to visit his estate for the press. In 1902, long articles about this development project appeared in the major national German newspapers, but also abroad, often carried by national pride. Donat argued primarily with the eradication of malaria in the outskirts of the capital, since the malaria prevented the expansion of Rome to the south, and with the acquisition of a new province for Italy without having to wage a colonial war. The urbanization of the swamps could save 200,000 Italians from emigrating.

Donat's plan failed. This time it was not the technical inadequacy as with the predecessors, but political considerations opposed the realization. The liberal government hesitated and gave preference to the north, where large swamps had to be drained in the Po Valley . The fierce resistance of the four large landowners resulted from the necessary expropriation and leasing of a large part of their marshland to the German syndicate. The Germans, too, are likely to have exaggerated expectations of profit-sharing. In any case, the co-financier, the Banca Commerciale in Milan, headed by the German banker Otto Joel , was constantly delaying the start of work. Donat, who ran his lobbying work and the estate on his own account, had used up his wife's assets of 75,000 gold marks in 1903 and returned to Germany penniless. The "Pontine Syndicate" was dissolved on September 4, 1914. This ended a premature but bold attempt at transnational community investment to develop new land.

Drainage 1930–1940

In 1930, the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini resumed work on draining the area according to Donat's plans; in just under 10 years, around 840 square kilometers of land were made usable for agriculture. Mussolini exploited the job creation program (similar to Adolf Hitler's construction of the autobahn from 1933 ) for propaganda purposes, so he often had himself photographed between the workers with a bare torso and shovel in hand.

In the course of the reclamation, the città nuove (new cities) Littoria (today Latina , 1932), Sabaudia (1933–34), Pontinia (1934–35), Aprilia (1936–37) and Pomezia (1938–39) emerged as new ones regional administrative centers (Centri comunali agricoli) . In Pontinia, Mussolini had a street named after Donat in recognition of his achievements. The then almost deserted area was settled by poor families from Emilia-Romagna , mostly inexperienced in agriculture , which explains many of the economic failures of the first few years.

A setback was the renewed flooding of part of the plain by the German Wehrmacht in late summer 1943, which wanted to hinder their advance on Rome after the Allies landed in Sicily. An assessment of this measure as the only case of biological warfare in World War II due to a planned triggering of malaria epidemics could be refuted by more recent studies. The drainage systems were repaired soon after the end of the war.

Today a canal system runs through the drained area. Mainly wheat, fruit and wine are grown. In 2012, around 550,000 people lived in the province of Latina , which roughly encompasses the then drained and previously largely uninhabited areas.

literature

  • Fedor Maria von Donat: About the Pontine Marshes. In: negotiations. Society for Geography in Berlin. Vol. 19, 1892, pp. 186-202, available online .
  • Steen Bo Frandsen: Syd for Rome. Kampen mod De pontinske sumpe. Forlaget Tidsskriftet Sfinx , Aarhus 2006, ISBN 87-89632-38-9 .
  • Ester Van Joolen: Archaeological land evaluation: a reconstruction of the suitability of ancient landscapes for various land uses in Italy focused on the first millennium BC . Dissertation, University of Groningen, 2003 (English), available online .
  • Anatolio Linoli: Twenty-six Centuries of Reclamation & Agricultural Improvement on the Pontine Marshes . In: Christof Ohleg (Ed.): Integrated Land and Water Resources Management in History . Writings of the German Water History Society (DWhG), special volume 2, Siegburg 2005 (English), pp. 27–56, available online ( Memento from July 16, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  • Luigi Monzo: Croci e fasci - Italian church building in the time of fascism, 1919–1945. 2 vol. Karlsruhe 2017 (dissertation, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology , 2017), pp. 894–900. (Church building in the new town foundations of the Pontine plain)
  • Count von Rossi: Hike in the Pontine Marshes. In: Westermanns Illustrirte Deutsche Monatshefte . Vol. 30, 2, No. 82, July 1871, pp. 399-405 (with ill.), Available online .
  • Daniela Spiegel: The new cities in the Pontine Marshes. In: Aram Mattioli , Gerald Steinacher : Building for Fascism: Architecture and Urban Development in Mussolini's Italy. Orell Füssli , 2009, pp. 111-139, ISBN 9783280061152 .
  • Hugo Webinger: Ninfa, the Pompeii of the Pontine Marshes. With three illustrations based on photographs. In: Reclam's Universe: Modern Illustrated Weekly. Vol. 27.2, 1911, pp. 1149-1152.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Der Neue Pauly , Vol. 1 (1996): Ager Pomptinus; Der Kleine Pauly , Vol. 4 (1972): Pomptinus ager.
  2. ↑ cf. OAW Dilke and Margaret S. Dilke: Terracina and the Pomptine Marshes. In: Greece & Rome , Second Series, Vol. 8, No. 2 (Oct., 1961) , pp. 172-173; Antonio Linoli: Twenty-six Centuries of Reclamation & Agricultural Improvement on the Pontine Marshes . 1991, p. 30
  3. ↑ cf. Fedor von Donat: Le Paludi Pontine , Roma 1886; The Pontine Marshes , Berlin 1892 and Cassel 1898. Also: Der Große Brockhaus , Leipzig 1908, vol. 13, p. 270.
  4. ↑ cf. Bogdan Graf von Hutten-Czapski , 60 years of politics and society , Berlin 1936.
  5. ↑ cf. also Otto Julius Bierbaum : A sensitive journey in the automobile in the project Gutenberg-DE Berlin 1903, p. 194.
  6. ↑ cf. Frank M. Snowden: The Conquest of Malaria. Italy, 1900-1992 . Yale University Press , New Haven and London, 2006
  7. ↑ Erhard Geißler and Jeanne Guillemin: German flooding of the Pontine Marshes in World War II. Biological warfare or total war tactic? In: Politics and the Life Sciences 29: 2, 2010, pp. 2–23

Coordinates: 41 ° 26 '  N , 13 ° 0'  E