DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.786#0432
chap, uv.] VAL DI CHIANA. 415
Thrasymene, and to the very base of the hoary Apennines.
This was for ages a dreary swamp, proverbial for pestilence ;
" But that is past, and now the zephyr brings
Health in its breath, and gladness on its wings."
It is now one of the most fertile tracts in Europe, scarcely
less healthy than the heights around it. This surprising-
change, which had been aimed at in vain for two centuries,
has been effected in the last sixty years by filling up the
swamp with alluvial deposits;2 and instead of slime and
putrid water, it now overruns with oil and wine, and all
the wealth of a southern soil, and in place of the fish and
wild-fowl, for which it was famed of old,3 are milk-white
oxen, fair as the steers of Clitumnus, and flocks of sheep,
tended by dark-eyed Chloes and Delias, who sit spinning
by the road-side.
A great portion of the plain belongs to the Grand Duke,
who has a small palace at Bettolle, eleven miles from
Montepulciano, and much of the land is parcelled off into
small poderi or farms, all built on one plan, and titled and
numbered like papers in a cabinet. In appearance the
plain is much like Lombardy, the products are similar, the
fertility equal, the road almost as level. The traveller
who would journey across it to Arezzo may find accom-
modation at Bettolle or Fojano.4
2 In the Roman portion of the Val and the project was abandoned. Tacit,
di Chiana, the opposite system of drain- Annal. I. 79.
ing has been pursued, and with little 3 The Xifun) irtpl KKoitrwv of Strabo
success. Repetti, I. p. 685. The Clanis (V. p. 226) must refer to this swamp,
or Chiana originally fell into the Tiber, then under water, rather than to either
but is now made to fall into the Arno. of the small lakes near the town, which
This change in its coarse was contem- were probably hardly distinguishable,
plated as long since as the reign of * Montepulciano is 13 miles from
Tiberius; but the Florentines of that day Chiusi by the direct road, 7 from Pienza,
sent a deputation to Rome deprecating 18 or 19 from Cortona, and 32 or 33
such a change on the ground that their from Arezzo. A so-called diligence runs
lands would be flooded and destroyed ; to the latter city several times a week.
Thrasymene, and to the very base of the hoary Apennines.
This was for ages a dreary swamp, proverbial for pestilence ;
" But that is past, and now the zephyr brings
Health in its breath, and gladness on its wings."
It is now one of the most fertile tracts in Europe, scarcely
less healthy than the heights around it. This surprising-
change, which had been aimed at in vain for two centuries,
has been effected in the last sixty years by filling up the
swamp with alluvial deposits;2 and instead of slime and
putrid water, it now overruns with oil and wine, and all
the wealth of a southern soil, and in place of the fish and
wild-fowl, for which it was famed of old,3 are milk-white
oxen, fair as the steers of Clitumnus, and flocks of sheep,
tended by dark-eyed Chloes and Delias, who sit spinning
by the road-side.
A great portion of the plain belongs to the Grand Duke,
who has a small palace at Bettolle, eleven miles from
Montepulciano, and much of the land is parcelled off into
small poderi or farms, all built on one plan, and titled and
numbered like papers in a cabinet. In appearance the
plain is much like Lombardy, the products are similar, the
fertility equal, the road almost as level. The traveller
who would journey across it to Arezzo may find accom-
modation at Bettolle or Fojano.4
2 In the Roman portion of the Val and the project was abandoned. Tacit,
di Chiana, the opposite system of drain- Annal. I. 79.
ing has been pursued, and with little 3 The Xifun) irtpl KKoitrwv of Strabo
success. Repetti, I. p. 685. The Clanis (V. p. 226) must refer to this swamp,
or Chiana originally fell into the Tiber, then under water, rather than to either
but is now made to fall into the Arno. of the small lakes near the town, which
This change in its coarse was contem- were probably hardly distinguishable,
plated as long since as the reign of * Montepulciano is 13 miles from
Tiberius; but the Florentines of that day Chiusi by the direct road, 7 from Pienza,
sent a deputation to Rome deprecating 18 or 19 from Cortona, and 32 or 33
such a change on the ground that their from Arezzo. A so-called diligence runs
lands would be flooded and destroyed ; to the latter city several times a week.