Throughout the early Medieval, the Po Delta area experienced a stable phase, with no changes in the coast-line or notable movement of the land towards the sea. However, the terrible flood named the “Rupture of Ficarolo” (ca 1152) radically altered this status quo. The Po di Ferrara split in two: the Po di Ferrara, which gradually went to ground, disappearing in the late seventeenth century, and the Po di Venezia which branched into two at Papozze, forming the Island of Ariano. The southern branch, which today still flows through Ariano Polesine and San Basilio to join with the River Goro, became known as the Po di Goro.
The Rupture of Ficarolo heavily influenced territorial dynamics. The main river course shifted north, Ferrara was no longer crossed by the Po, and the confines of the Island of Ariano Polesine were delineated. The Po di Goro became one of the Po’s principal branches.
During the sixteenth century, the Republic of Venice realized that the Po di Goro was becoming dangerous, due to the enormous amounts of debris it transported toward the sea, a threat both to the functionality of the river-mouths to the north and to Venice itself. The Venetians decided to dig a 7km-long canal that conducted the water directly to the inlet of Goro, and which today constitutes a section of the Po di Venezia. This operation was named “Taglio di Porto Viro” (1600-1604)
Today, the right-bank inlet of the Po di Goro is by the inhabited centres of Papozze and Santa Maria in Punta, and flows for ca 45km to the Adriatic near Gorino Ferrarese (municipality of Goro).
