The Reclamation of the Pontine Marshes

Abstract

SOUTH of Rome along the Appian Way, beyond Velletri and Cisterna, the landscape changes from a wooded hill country to flat plains intersected by canals. On the east this low land is flanked by the majestic and arid Monti Lepini (Volscian Mountains) and Monti Ausoni; on the west from Nettuno to Terracina it borders on the Mediterranean. Formerly it was a place of great desolation and solitude-a few herds of wild-looking cattle or horses, a few miserable straw huts, and vast, silent stretches of water. Today the pestilential marshes exist no longer: they have been turned into productive fields. This transformation recalls the reclamation of the Roman Campagna, recently described in the Geographical Review.' Both are part of the great program of comprehensive land improvement, bonifica integrale, under way in Italy.2 On account of the rapidity of its execution and the number and complexity of the obstacles overcome, the accomplishments in the Pontine Marshes are particularly spectacular. On June 26, I928, the law of the bonifica integrale was approved by the Council of Ministers, and on December 24, I928, the Mussolini Law, making the necessary financial provisions, was passed by Parliament. The credit of putting the whole scheme on a workable basis is, however, due to Professor Arrigo Serpieri, now undersecretary of the Bonifica Integrale, whose comprehensive scientific plan was embodied in the Serpieri Law of I924. When Rome was in its infancy this region to the southeast was inhabited by the mountain-dwelling Volscians, a rich and powerful tribe. Remains of their habitations are found today, and we know the names of some of their cities, founded perhaps a thousand years before Christ-Pometia, Cora, Norba, Setia, Satricum, and Anxur (Terracina) and other strongholds, which were, later, conquered by the Romans. Tradition has it that these plains were of an exceptional fertility and formed part of the granary of Rome. When winter floods subsided there was left an alluvial deposit of such richness that grain could be sown and produced enormous crops without further attention until harvest time, as on the lands overflowed by the Nile.