The landscape that characterises the Po Delta today is profoundly different from the one that presented itself to travellers in past centuries and is the result of the uninterrupted activity of the Po River in the Po Valley and the action of man who for centuries has tried to shape it according to his own needs.
It is a changing landscape, subject to the continuous variations in the course of the main branches of the Po, due above all to the routes taken by the great floods and therefore also to climatic changes.
As far as the Codigoro area in particular is concerned, there is archaeological evidence of the existence of a scattered settlement in Roman times, during a period of mild climate and hydrological stability, to which man’s work was added, deforesting and regimenting the watercourses to encourage the productivity of largely emerged land.
Not far from the sea and on the Po di Volano, at a time when communications and trade took place mainly along waterways, the ancient Corniculani (perhaps a corruption of Cornua Volani) was in a strategic position for trade and transit.
The Popilia-Annia road passed through here, built in the 2nd century B.C. to connect Rimini with Aquileia and attested by the discovery of a trachyte milestone from the Euganean Hills at Ponte Maodino, halfway between Codigoro and Pomposa Abbey and on the fossilised cordon of the pre-Roman coast later crossed by the consular road. Nearby there was the Fossa Augusta, the inland navigation canal commissioned by Emperor Augustus, which connected the Ravenna port of Classis with Adria and Altino and which, by joining together sections of previous canals, generated the Gaurus canal that joined the Po di Volano at Codigoro (Caput Gauri) and then headed north-east.

Milestone

The situation changed at the end of the Empire, with the increase in rainfall and water levels: the overland routes became unstable and the Po di Volano, no longer controlled and channelled, often overflowed, flooding the surrounding areas and depositing new sediment, while large freshwater ponds were created.
The importance of inland navigation in this area is demonstrated by the frequent occasional discovery of single-hulled pirogues, made from a single tree trunk shaped at the ends and hollowed out on the inside to make the hull. The wood came from the surrounding forests and was mostly oak or oak. In 1956, a small, flat-bottomed, shell-shaped boat was also discovered in Caprile at a depth of 3 metres.

A monoxile dugout

In 1922, a planking boat was found in Bosco Spada, near Pomposa Abbey. It was also a flat-bottomed boat, 50 metres long and 10 metres wide, so that it could move on the very shallow waters of the inland sea. It may have been a cursory ship, operating on the public shipping lines and used to transport people.
Between the 5th and 7th centuries A.D., due to climatic changes, human settlements decreased and Codigoro, once again surrounded by water, became the home of fishermen and hunters under the rule of the Byzantine Exarchate of Ravenna, which lasted until the 11th century, when it came under the rule of the Insula Pomposiana and was involved in its reclamation work.
The town gradually acquired importance to the point that the Abbot of Pomposa, in order to assert his political, administrative and economic rule, had his domus built there, which is now known as the “Palazzo del Vescovo“.

– text by Benedetta Bolognesi (tenacious cultural explorer) –
– cover shot of Marcello Serenetti (master of accuracy) –