entry
June 2010
Cleaning Up
the Regi Lagni
An ambitious project is underway,
backed by an initial allocation of 50 million euros,
to restore and clean up what used to be one of the
"happiest" bits of Campania Felix (Happy Campania),
now fallen on very unhappy times. In question is the
area known as the Regi
Lagni; that is, much of the Campanian
plain, the area to the north and northeast of
Naples. The area forms a large drainage basin of
about 1000 km2 (425 miles2);
the Regi Lagni
is the vast network of artificial canals that
collect rain and spring waters in the provinces of
Caserta, Naples and Benevento, an area that contains
about 100 towns and a current population of almost
three million.
The main canal is 55 km (34 miles) long (the
red line in the adjacent image) and arcs from the
area near Nola in the east (on the right in the
image) through the broad plain to enter the sea at a
point between Lago Patria and the mouth of the
Volturno river. There are an additional 210 km (130
miles) of secondary canals along the path of the
main canal, producing an image of a naked fish
vertebra with spines running off of it. In spite of
the degraded state of the system (the most generous
description I have found calls it "an open sewer")
and lack of maintenance, the system still plays an
important role in the maintenance of the
hydrological regime of the basin. The entire area is
intensely farmed and, as well, supports much small
industry.
The canal system goes back to the 1610, when
the Spanish rulers of Naples decided to solve the
flooding of the Clanio river and drainage basin once
and for all. (They had actually undertaken earlier
water management projects in area as early as 1539.
Stabilizing the zone was high on viceroy Toledo's list of
things that had to be done in order to turn Naples
into the best fortified city in the Spanish empire.)
For 1600—and even today it would be ambitious—it was
a massive land reclamation and water management
project and essentially amounted to straightening
large sections of the river and converting it to a
canal with added rectilinear secondary waterways. It
took six years and involved the talents of the
finest engineers of the day. (These included Tommaso Alappio, D.A.
Cafaro, and Michelangelo Cartaro, all involved in
their careers with such enterprises as the
construction of the Royal Palace and the first
university building in Naples, now the National
Museum.) The finished product worked well and was
maintained for at least three centuries. The Bourbon rulers of Naples expanded it in
the 1700s; the area, after all, was on the way out
to the new Royal Palace at Caserta and, thus,
suitable for being "regally urbanized." (Some
remnants of plush Bourbon villas can still be seen
in the area.) The system seems to have survived
usefully and relatively whole until the boom years
after WWII. Overbuilding, unlicensed building,
absolute disregard for the environment, etc.
etc.—all that—so when it started to degrade, it went to
hell in a very fast handbasket.
A word about the Clanio river. It used to start in
the hills above Nola, but today it no longer really
exists. Whatever is left of the river apparently
still flows underground near Lago Patria, feeding it
and providing what little water movement and
exchange exists in that body of water. Some sources
claim that local farmers still dig down and tap that
source for fresh water. In ancient times, the
river actually flowed into the lake, but the
canalization project moved the final stretch of the
main river somewhat to the north. (The name lagni is
probably a variation of Clanio. In Latin, the river was
the Clanius,
also Glanius;
later, it was called the Lanius. Regi means "royal.") In any event,
neither the old Clanio nor any other river actually
feeds the Regi
Lagni these days. Any new water that goes
into the system is from rain run-off, which,
however, can be considerable.
Reclaiming the area means, first and
foremost, going through the Sisyphean task of
clearing out of the canals an unbelievable amount of
rubbish, including junked cars, TVs and
refrigerators—all that plus the chemical clean-up.
But they are at work. Optimistic drawing-board
visions see kilometers of tree-lined canals running
through recreational areas and archaeological parks.
sources:
Fiengo, Giuseppe. (1988) I Regi Lagni e la bonifica della Campania
Fexlix durante il viceregno spagnolo.
Firenze 1988. Olschki (Biblioteca dell'Archivio storico
italiano.) Florence.
on-line source: Regi lagni: Giardini
d'Europe
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