Fucine Lake

Fucine Lake
The Fucine Lake as seen from satellite imagery (post-drainage).
Location	Central Italy
Coordinates	41°59′42″N 13°32′50″E / 41.99500°N 13.54722°E / 41.99500; 13.54722Coordinates: 41°59′42″N 13°32′50″E / 41.99500°N 13.54722°E / 41.99500; 13.54722
Type	Drainage Lake, former lake
Primary outflows	Canal
Basin countries	Italy
Max. length	10.74 mi (17.28 km)
Max. width	6.74 mi (10.85 km)
Surface area	max 140 km²
Surface elevation	2,168 ft (661 m)

The Fucine Lake (Italian: Lago Fucino or Lago di Celano) was a large endorheic lake in central Italy, stretching from Avezzano in the northwest to Ortucchio in the southeast, and touching Trasacco in the southwest. Once the third largest lake in Italy, it was drained in 1875.

Lore

The former lake is mentioned by Virgil in the Aeneid in book 7, in that it weeps for Umbro, the healer priest killed tragically in battle. (See line 7:882 in the Fogles translation).

Roman drainage

Old map showing Lake Fucino prior to modern draining.

The Romans knew the lake as Fucinus Lacus and founded settlements on its banks, including Marruvium. It was the site of the Battle of Fucine Lake in 89 BC. However, while the lake provided fertile soil and a large quantity of fish, it also harboured malaria, and, having no natural outflow, repeatedly flooded the surrounding arable land. The Emperor Claudius attempted to control the lake by digging a 5.6 km tunnel through Monte Salviano, requiring 30,000 workers and eleven years, but with uncertain success.^[1] The original lake had a fluctuating area of about 140 km² which the Claudian initiative may have reduced to about 90 km². A 4.5 km collecting canal was extended and deepened by Hadrian which reduced the area of the lake to about 57 km². The larger 19th century tunnel, along the same route as the Roman tunnel, destroyed most of the archaeology of the Roman tunnel, which is why the success of the earlier Claudian scheme is so uncertain. The deeper Hadrianic canal destroyed the archaeology of the Claudian canal. The final Roman canal has left clear archaeology, showing that 1 km from the lake, the tunnel was 7.5 m deep, 19.5 m wide at the top and 4.5 m wide at the base. It sloped to the tunnel at 0.05%. A very detailed account of the Roman scheme is found in the Brisse & Retrou reference below.

Drain blockage

As the Empire fell, there was a failure to maintain the Roman drainage scheme. Sediment and vegetation blocked the collecting canal. An earthquake on a fault crossing the collecting canal dropped the land on the lake side 30–35 cm relative to the tunnel entrance. Investigations where the fault crosses the canal show that large amounts of sediment had accumulated in the canal before the earthquake. On the assumption that this earthquake would damage Rome it seems very likely that the earthquake occurred shortly before 508 AD when the earthquake damage to the Colosseum was repaired. The lake appears to have returned to its uncontrolled pre-Claudian area by the end of the 5th century and certainly by the end of the 6th century.

Some suggestion, or attempt, to restore the Roman drainage scheme appears in both the 13th and 15th centuries but neither succeeded.

New drainage

In the 19th century, the Swiss engineer Franz Mayor de Montricher was commissioned by the prince Alessandro Torlonia to drain the lake. A 6.3 km-long and 21 m-wide canal was begun in 1862 and within 13 years, the lake was completely drained. The resulting plain is one of Italy's most fertile regions. Antiquities from the Roman occupation of the land, after the first drainage scheme, became part of the Torlonia collection.

Fucino today, as seen from Monte Sirente

Literature

• A. Campanelli (ed.) 2001 Il Tesoro del lago, L'archeologia del Fucino e la collezione Torlonia
• Sandro D'Amati 1960 Il prosciugamento del Fucino, Avezzano
• October 1996 Paleoseismology related to deformed archaeological remains in the Fucino plain Implications for subrecent seismicity in Central Italy Annali di Geofisica
• Cesare Letta 1972 I Marsi e il Fucino nell’antichità, Milan.
• Brisse & Rotrou 1876 Desséchement du Lac Fucino éxécuté par le Prince Alexandre Torlonia (en Juin 1861). The draining of Lake Fucino accomplished by Prince Alexander Torlonia. ([With] An abridged account historical and technical by Messrs. A. Brisse ... and Léon de Rotrou ... English Translation by V. de Tivoli Junr) Rome

See Also

Tulare Lake in California. Once the largest lake in the western United States, it was also drained for agricultural use and flood control purposes in the nineteenth century.

References