Sunday, June 21, 2009

No, the other Campagna

But that's not actually the Campagna my family is from. We're from up North, hence my great-grandma having red hair. But instead of a poignant tale of heroics during the Holocaust, my people have a tale of urban sprawl. I do like that we were near the Tiber:

The Roman Campagna (Italian: campagna romana), or just Campagna, is a low-lying area surrounding Rome in the Lazio region of central Italy, with an area of approximately 2,100 km² (800 m²). Geographically, it is bordered by the Sabini mountains to the northeast, the Alban Hills to the southeast, on the southwest by the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Tolfa and Sabatini mountains to the northwest. The River Tiber runs through the area.

During the Ancient Roman period, it was a popular residential area, but it was abandoned during the Middle Ages due to malaria and insufficient water supplies for farming needs. The region was reclaimed in the 19th and 20th centuries for use in mixed farming and new settlements have been built. Starting with the fifties of last century, the expansion of Rome destroyed large parts of the Campagna, especially east and south of the city.

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