Tobias Jones - The Po: An Elegy for Italys Longest River

The

PO

The Dark Heart of Italy

Utopian Dreams

The Salati Case

White Death

Blood on the Altar

Death of a Showgirl

A Place of Refuge

Ultra

The

PO

AN ELEGY FOR

ITALYS LONGEST RIVER

TOBIAS JONES

www.headofzeus.com

First published in the UK in 2022 by Head of Zeus Ltd,
part of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Copyright Tobias Jones, 2022

The moral right of Tobias Jones to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN (HB): 9781786697394

ISBN (E): 9781786697387

Maps by Jamie Whyte

Image credits: View of Mantova, 1575 courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. All photographs Tobias Jones.

The author is grateful for permission to quote from Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot (Faber and Faber Ltd)

Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologizes for any errors or omissions in the above list and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book.

Head of Zeus Ltd
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For Matteo Galloni (il Gallo)

La vita moderna ha un ritmo falso.

I nostri tassametri continuano a salire e
tutti abbiamo paura di non poter pagare.

Bruno Barilli, 1963

Modern life has a false rhythm.

Our fares keep rising and all of us fear we
wont be able to pay.

ACQUA DOLCE: Freshwater

ALPI COZIE: The Cottian Alps, the south-western section of the Alps whose symbol is MONVISO

ARCHIBUGIO: The arquebus gun

ARGINE (pl. ARGINI): Riverbank

ARGINE MAESTRO: The main riverbank (there is often a secondary one on the other side of the designated floodplain actually next to the water)

BASSA: Low-lying land/lowlands. Always accompanied by the definite article: LA BASSA

BODRIO (pl. BODRI): Floodplain lakes and ponds (aka BUGNO/I)

BONDINCUS: Synonym of River Po

BONIFICA (pl. BONIFICHE): Land reclamation

BUCO DI VISO: A tunnel excavated through MONVISO ( c. 147880), also known in French as le pertuis du Viso or le tunnel de la Traversette

BURATTINO: A glove puppet

CANNABIS SATIVA: The cannabis plant from which hemp is derived

CONDOTTIERO: A mercenary

DAUPHIN: A former province in south-eastern France under the control, until 1349, of the Counts of Albon (later called the Dauphins of Viennois due to the presence of a dolphin on their coat of arms)

DELIZIE: The delights of the Estensi dynasty

ERIDANO: A river of Greek mythology (Eridanos/Eridanus in English). Also the ancient Greek word for the River Po

ESCARTO[U]NS: A republic or federation straddling the Italo-French border in the Cottian Alps ( c. 12441713/1798)

ESTE (pl. ESTENSI): The SIGNORIA of Ferrara (12401597)

EUTROPHICATION: The enrichment of water by nutrients and minerals (very often agricultural fertilisers) leading to algal blooms

FARNESE: The SIGNORIA of Parma (15451731)

FOJONCO: One of the mythological beasts of the lowlands

FOSSA: A ditch

GOLENA (pl. GOLENE): Floodplain

GONZAGA: The SIGNORIA of Mantova (13281708)

IDROVORA: A pump station

LANZICHENECCHI: The Italianisation of Landsknechte , the Germanic foot soldiers of the Holy Roman Empires Imperial Army

LATIFUNDISMO: A system of great landed estates

LEFT BANK: Looking downstream, the bank on the left (usually the northern side of the Po)

MATAF: Abbreviation of Mediterranean Allied Tactical Air Force in the Second World War

MENTHA PIPERITA: Peppermint

MONDINA (pl. MONDINE): A female rice paddy worker ( mondare = to clean, peel or prune)

MONVISO: The mountain (3,842 metres) in whose Plain of the King the Po is born. Nicknamed Re di Pietra , Stone King

NUTRIA: Myocastor coypus (coypu)

PADUS: Synonym of River Po

PEDOCLIMATE: A microclimate within soil

PELLAGRA: A disease characterised by dermatitis, gastrointestinal disorders and mental disturbances associated with a diet deficient in niacin

PERCHED: A perched river has a bed higher than the surrounding ground elevation and is therefore not the lowest point in the valley

PIAN DEL RE: The Plain of the King, site of the source of the Po

PIANURA PADANA: The plain of the Po

PIENA: Full (used to describe the river when its almost flooding)

ROGGIA: An irrigation ditch

ROTTA: A breach in the riverbank

RIGHT BANK: Looking downstream, the bank on the right (usually the southern side of the Po)

RISAIA (pl. RISAIE): A rice paddy field

RISORGIMENTO: The movement for Italian unity in the nineteenth century

SICYOS ANGULATUS: Star-cucumber, aka ZUCCA PAZZA, the mad pumpkin

SIGNORIA: The governing dynasty of a city state

SINKHOLE: A hollow place or depression in which drainage collects; often connected to groundwater through cavities and swallets

TAGLIO: A cut (i.e. to divert the river)

TERRAMARE: Middle/Late Bronze Age settlements along the plain of the Po

VALDESI: the Waldensians, followers of Peter Valdo/Waldo of Lyon ( c .1140 c .1205). Aka Vaudois or Waldenses

Ive maintained the Italian spellings of all place names (although for geographical adjectives like Lombard or Emilian I have obviously kept the English). I have also maintained the Italian spellings of personal names to avoid mangling Vittorio into Victor and so on. Both place names and personal names should, however, be easily recognisable. A lot of writing about the river is either archaic or in dialect: the words are so rich and resonant that I have frequently quoted them in full (complete with unusual spellings) with translations alongside. Unless otherwise stated, translations (and challenging rhymes) are mine.

Im bobbing along in a small boat trying to work my way in but theres nothing to offer any bearings. In this eerie space, which is neither quite open sea nor solid land, it feels as if youre in a spacious maze of low-lying bars, islands and spits. All is flat. The sky is wide and the distant land is nothing more than blue-grey mould on the water.

Any ground here seems unsolid: the scanni , long sandbanks, are constantly dented or stretched by the slap of waves and the gusting winds. Little islands called bonelli emerge, moulded by the meeting of the tide and the rivers slow flow. Then, days or years later, they go under again. This is what they call, in dialect, pialassa the give and take of sea and river, of water and land.

Its no longer a place where humans belong. A ruined building stands in the water, its brick walls half gone, like a smashed-up Lego project. On every other spit there are abandoned churches, smokehouses and shacks. Absent windows and doors create dark, rectangular sockets.

Birds are in charge here. The executioners cap of a sandwich tern looks down on you from a post. Stilts, with their bubble-gum-pink legs, wade in the mud and algae alongside the avocets and redshanks. Every minute another grey heron or little egret leaps into the air, squawking annoyance at your invasion.