Walker - 1967 - A geography of Italy

PART III: REGIONAL GEOGRAPHY
they are generally permeable; many o f the lesser valleys are virtually dry but the
poor drainage o f others contributed to the notorious unhealthiness o f the Campagna
(strictly speaking the area south o f the Tiber) as, with the decline o f Rome,
such matters were neglected. Before the Augustine rebuilding o f the city, Rome
was largely constructed o f brick and tufo. Pozzolana, a volcanic ash laid down in
or resorted by water, was used to make cement as it is today.
The Alban volcano is a complicated structure in some respects recalling
Vesuvius. The central cones (M. Cavo, M . Jano) are surrounded by a horseshoe
depression part o f which is deeply pitted by the steep-sided craters occupied
by lakes Albano and Nemi. An incomplete outer rim reaches 925m in M.
Artemisio.
For centuries travellers to Rome have been impressed by the contrast between
the magnificence o f the city and the poverty o f its immediate environs. Even
today the Agro Romano, increasingly encroached on for new suburbs and penetrated
by new roads, still has a neglected, empty air. Wheat, its stubble grazed by
sheep in winter, still dominates the land-use although there has been some
expansion o f olive cultivation and o f sprinkler-irrigated fodder crops aimed at
milk and meat production. W ith its peppering o f very large farms (casali),
frequently well equipped with buildings and machinery, the landscape has much
in common with the latifondi zones o f the South; indeed, the traditional patrician
families o f Rome are still well entrenched here. The picture changes at the
Tivoli hills where olives become dominant, and on the slopes of the Alban hills
where vines are almost a monoculture; from Velletri through Genzano to
Frascati is one huge vineyard, source o f the Castelh wines. The higher areas of
the volcano, including M . Cavo and M . Artemisio, where the soils are thin, are
left under chestnut woodland which is coppiced to provide vine supports. The
springs o f the inner depression have long contributed to Rome’s water supplies.
The deltaic coastlands widening southwards from Ladispoli, formerly malarial
marsh and once the shame o f the capital, were reclaimed between the wars and
have been organized in poderi. The Isola Sacra and the Bonifica Maccarese contain
the only large irrigated area in Rome province. In general they support a
mixed economy including milk and meat production based on irrigated fodder,
but the ‘fossil’ dune zones are exploited for wine and dessert grapes. A state
hunting reserve, heavily wooded with umbrella pines, occupies much of the
southern part o f the delta. Ostia, Fregene and Ladispoli are summer bathing
resorts o f the capital. Part o f the reclaimed delta has been sacrificed for the Rome
(Fiumicino) airport which replaces Ciampino.
Whatever the circumstances o f its foimdation, Rome grew up on the Tiber’s
left bank on a group o f tufo bluffs known as the Seven Hills (the Quirinale,
Viminale, Esquilino, Capitolino, Palatino, Celio and Aventino). They provided
defensible sites near enough together to be enclosed later within the fourthcentury
(b c ) Servian walls and they overlooked the river at a point where it
could be most easily bridged. At a time when the extension o f the Etruscan
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