readership would be Venice merchants, this would be a subject of great interest to them. But it also could be that whether he had gone to China or not, one of his motivations for writing the book was to encourage the Venetian government to extend its salt administration, especially in possessions around the Mediterranean.
The extent of Marco Polo’s influence is difficult to measure, but it is clear that Venice, like the khan, did extend its salt administration and derive great wealth and power from it.
CHAPTER SIX
Two Ports and the Prosciutto in Between
W HAT WAS IT about this not especially salty stretch of the Adriatic that made Venetians get into the salt trade, along with the merchants of Cervia, the monks at Comacchio, and the archbishop of Ravenna? It was not so much the sea in their faces as the river at their backs. The Po starts in the Italian Alps and flows straight across the peninsula, spreading into a marshy estuary from Ravenna to Venice. The valley of the Po is an anomaly of the Italian peninsula, so strikingly different that its uniqueness becomes apparent after a moment’s glance at a map of Italy. With the Alps to the north and the sylvan mountains of Tuscany to the south, one thick ribbon of rich, rolling green pastures stretches coast to coast along the Po. A haven for agriculture, this has always been the most affluent area in Italy, and today, known as Emilia-Romagna, it still is.
The Romans built a road, the Via Emilia—today it is the eight-lane A-1 superhighway—connecting what became the centers of culture and commerce from Piacenza to Parma to Reggio to Modena to Bologna and on to the Adriatic coast. The agricultural wealth of this region depended on both a port for its goods and a source of salt for its agriculture. By competing for this business, two fiercely commercial competitors at opposite ends of the Po, Genoa on the Mediterranean and Venice on the Adriatic, became two of the greatest ports of the Middle Ages.
On the rich plains of Emilia-Romagna, off of the great Roman road, are the ruins of a Roman city named Veleia. Historians have puzzled over Veleia because the Romans had a clear set of criteria for the sites of their cities and Veleia does not fit them. Not only is it too far from the road, it is on the cold windward side of a mountain. But it has one thing in common with almost every important city in Italy: It is near a source of salt. Veleia was built over underground brine springs, which is why it came to be known as the big salt place, Salsomaggiore.
The earliest record of salt production in Veleia dates from the second century B.C. Like many other saltworks, it was abandoned after the fall of the Roman Empire. Charlemagne, the conquering Holy Roman emperor who, like the Romans before him, had an army that needed salt, started it up again. The name Salso first appears on an 877 document.
In ancient times the brine wells had a huge wheel with slats inside and out for footing. Two men, chained at the neck, walked inside on the bottom, stepping from slat to slat, and two other men, also chained at the neck, did the same on the outside on top. The wheel turned a shaft that wrapped a rope, which hoisted buckets of brine. The brine was then boiled, which meant that a duke or lord who wished to control the brine wells had to also control a wide area of forest to provide wood for fuel.
Engraving from the late Middle Ages of a wheel powered by prisoners used to pump brine at Salsomaggiore. State Archives, Parma
Starting in the eleventh century, the Pallovicino family controlled the wells and the region. But in 1318, the city of Parma took over thirty-one Pallovicino wells. The event was considered important enough to be recorded in a fresco in the city palace. He who controlled the brine wells at Salsomaggiore controlled the region, and the takeover of these thirty-one brine wells marked the transfer of power from feudal lord to city government.
I N THE SEVENTH and eighth
The extent of Marco Polo’s influence is difficult to measure, but it is clear that Venice, like the khan, did extend its salt administration and derive great wealth and power from it.
CHAPTER SIX
Two Ports and the Prosciutto in Between
W HAT WAS IT about this not especially salty stretch of the Adriatic that made Venetians get into the salt trade, along with the merchants of Cervia, the monks at Comacchio, and the archbishop of Ravenna? It was not so much the sea in their faces as the river at their backs. The Po starts in the Italian Alps and flows straight across the peninsula, spreading into a marshy estuary from Ravenna to Venice. The valley of the Po is an anomaly of the Italian peninsula, so strikingly different that its uniqueness becomes apparent after a moment’s glance at a map of Italy. With the Alps to the north and the sylvan mountains of Tuscany to the south, one thick ribbon of rich, rolling green pastures stretches coast to coast along the Po. A haven for agriculture, this has always been the most affluent area in Italy, and today, known as Emilia-Romagna, it still is.
The Romans built a road, the Via Emilia—today it is the eight-lane A-1 superhighway—connecting what became the centers of culture and commerce from Piacenza to Parma to Reggio to Modena to Bologna and on to the Adriatic coast. The agricultural wealth of this region depended on both a port for its goods and a source of salt for its agriculture. By competing for this business, two fiercely commercial competitors at opposite ends of the Po, Genoa on the Mediterranean and Venice on the Adriatic, became two of the greatest ports of the Middle Ages.
On the rich plains of Emilia-Romagna, off of the great Roman road, are the ruins of a Roman city named Veleia. Historians have puzzled over Veleia because the Romans had a clear set of criteria for the sites of their cities and Veleia does not fit them. Not only is it too far from the road, it is on the cold windward side of a mountain. But it has one thing in common with almost every important city in Italy: It is near a source of salt. Veleia was built over underground brine springs, which is why it came to be known as the big salt place, Salsomaggiore.
The earliest record of salt production in Veleia dates from the second century B.C. Like many other saltworks, it was abandoned after the fall of the Roman Empire. Charlemagne, the conquering Holy Roman emperor who, like the Romans before him, had an army that needed salt, started it up again. The name Salso first appears on an 877 document.
In ancient times the brine wells had a huge wheel with slats inside and out for footing. Two men, chained at the neck, walked inside on the bottom, stepping from slat to slat, and two other men, also chained at the neck, did the same on the outside on top. The wheel turned a shaft that wrapped a rope, which hoisted buckets of brine. The brine was then boiled, which meant that a duke or lord who wished to control the brine wells had to also control a wide area of forest to provide wood for fuel.
Engraving from the late Middle Ages of a wheel powered by prisoners used to pump brine at Salsomaggiore. State Archives, Parma
Starting in the eleventh century, the Pallovicino family controlled the wells and the region. But in 1318, the city of Parma took over thirty-one Pallovicino wells. The event was considered important enough to be recorded in a fresco in the city palace. He who controlled the brine wells at Salsomaggiore controlled the region, and the takeover of these thirty-one brine wells marked the transfer of power from feudal lord to city government.
I N THE SEVENTH and eighth
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