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NAVIGLI HISTORY The Naviglio Grande was the first of a large and complex channels network built starting from the 12th century in Lombardy, initially in order to water the fields. However, its most successful result will be the shipping of heavy and poor goods. It´s a popular and traditional image the one with the Naviglio with barges (called cobbie) tied to the Darsena, carried by the current, or towed by horses or men harnessed with thick ropes along the Alzaia, so called because of its functions of drawing barges from Milan to the mouth of the main river, the Ticino. A particularly relevant date for the history of Naviglio Grande was March, 15th 1386 when the Count of Virtues Gian Galeazzo Visconti put the foundation stone of the Cathedral of Milan. The date is important because with the construction of the Cathedral not only Naviglio Grande emerged as the first and most important mean of communication in Milan, but also showed that water transports could develop and build a network of waterways. The waterways network was completed, thanks to the progress of engineering, at the point that people started to talk not only of the Naviglio Grande but of the Navigli. Wars, the plague, earthquakes, famines, foreign governments and many other misfortunes alternated activity to long stops, neglection and degradation. It was under the Austrian domination in the 19th century that the history of Navigli reached its highest point. The Naviglio Grande had a length of nearly 50 kilometres, which added to the 101 of the others Navigli and the 81 of the navigable rivers formed a system with a total development of 232 kilometres. The volume of traffic was considerable. Sand, brick, stone cutting, wood, coal, food, salt and metals arrived in Milan; fabrics, handcrafts, pottery, manure and ashes instead departed. Even during the Second World War, the Navigli recorded a new increase in traffics: Allied Aviation struck the normal ways of communication by land, and water was presented as an alternative to the transport of goods. In the years immediately after the conflict, when the city was partially destroyed by the Anglo-American bombing, the Naviglio rose again with overpowering vitality: in 1953 the Darsena Porta Ticinese was still thirteenth in the rankings of national ports for receiving goods. But it was the last light of a sunset that would have no longer seen a new day. The cost of goods transported on Navigli it was starting to be too high. Friday March 30, 1979 the last barge was tied in the Darsena, the last load of sand was downloaded and only water will keep on flowing in the Navigli but only to water fields, as it was in the first intentions. |
 
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