Lorraine and Reclamation

/
/
Lorraine and Reclamation

Maremma land reclamation

THE LORENAS WERE THE FIRST TO FACE THE AREA'S ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEM WITH COMMITMENT AND DETERMINATION AND BEGAN THAT TOTAL CLEANING WHICH ALLOWED THE TUSCAN MAREMMA TO PERMANENTLY RESTORE AFTER CENTURIES OF ABANDONED AND DEGRADATION.

Only with the Lorena family was the problem of land reclamation in the Maremma addressed as a general problem with a great use of both intellectual, financial and physical energy. Pietro Leopoldo was the first to make a radical change by abolishing part of the feudal rights that limited agricultural development. Furthermore, he eliminated duties and taxes that affected the grain trade and civic uses that hindered private initiative, distributed the grand ducal properties to direct farmers and introduced new and more profitable crops and selected breeds of cattle. In 1766 Pietro Leopoldo claimed the autonomy of the lower province of Siena for the benefit of the central administration of the State “to give the possible help to the agriculture of the Maremme where there are unhappy populations”. With him, the problem of Maremma reclamation became, first of all, a state problem, because individuals or private companies would never have had either the strength or the perseverance over time to free the Maremma from the malarial plague. With this program, under the direction of the Jesuit father Leonardo Ximènes (1716-1786), a series of grandiose reclamation and canalization works began, starting from the plain surrounding Grosseto. With this program, under the direction of the Jesuit father Leonardo Ximènes (1716-1786), a series of grandiose reclamation and canalization works began, starting from the plain surrounding Grosseto. Castiglione della Pescaia and to the lagoon of Orbetello he began damming rivers, delimiting ponds and swamps, digging canals for the flow and diversion of water and building floodgates to regulate the drainage of marshy areas. In 1815, under the guidance of the engineer and mathematician Vittorio Fossombroni (1754-1844), the reclamation was resumed with the new method of “filling“, a particular procedure which consisted of pouring the turbid waters of the rivers into well-defined marshy areas; special channels then disposed of the clarified water.

A new impulse and new technical progress in hydraulic concepts, under Leopold II, animated the reclamation (at the expense of the Ganduchy) of 1828. Work began the following year, with 5000 workers and the direction of the hydraulic engineer Alessandro Manetti (1787-1863), in just one hundred and sixty days the first diversion canal was built, fourteen meters wide, which, deriving the turbid waters of the Ombrone , north of Grosseto, flowed into the swamp that needed to be filled after a distance of seven kilometres. Having filled the swamps, Leopold II also provided for a new road network. The artery of the Via Aurelia was then traced from Cecina to Chiarone with regular branches through the Maremma hills and mountains. Furthermore, the plan to repopulate the area was implemented: all the convicts of the other Italian states, provided they had not committed serious crimes, would be able to take refuge freely in this area. The most obvious consequence of this concession, however, was the birth and proliferation of brigandage, seen by many locals as a phenomenon of rebellion and freedom. The spirit and commitment that guided Grand Duke Leopold II gave rise to imitators and emulators, and the Counts of Gherardesca also set an example by providing for land subdivisions, sharecropping, and agricultural and livestock innovations.

The Unification of Italy and the reclamation of the Maremma

The centuries-old struggle for the reclamation of the Tuscan Maremma ended in the name of united Italy in 1861. The previous commitment and efforts had a limit in the regional dimension which necessarily informed the interventions of the previous administrations. From the new State, however, a general and integrated conception could arise. The Maremma reclamation could live at the center of political thought as a typical critical work of civilization. In this sense, in 1890 the Maremma land reclamation was defined as being of public utility and it was reasoned and operated in terms of integral reclamation, combining the two terms of hydraulic and sanitary reclamation with the agricultural one, to achieve an organic, unitary and lasting result over time. The complete reclamation begun by the Lorenas was completed during the 20th century byMaremma Institution (created in 1951 by Presidential Decree) and by the agrarian reform of the post-war century: once the large estates were dismembered and expropriated, hundreds of farms were created (many still visible today) given as property to farmers and lands to cultivate were assigned to those who had never had Nothing. Thus, intensive and mechanized agriculture was born, supported by hundreds of small businesses of direct farmers.

The Reclamation and Rebirth of the Maremma

Thanks to the reclamation (and to the continuous maintenance during the 1900s of what was tenaciously done by the Lorena family), the dream of centuries of men and peoples who inhabited and lived (painfully) in the Tuscan Maremma was realised. The waters cleaned and channeled, the swamps filled, the ponds dried up, the “malarial” Anopheles mosquitoes destroyed, leave room for cultivated fields, plowed plains, rehabilitated farms and villages. The Maremma has transformed from a border land into that rich agricultural area that we can all appreciate today.

Resources on Maremma land reclamation