The Po, Italy’s longest river, begins at the foot of Mount Viso, very close to France, and runs west to east through four regions (Piedmont, Lombardy, Veneto and Emilia Romagna), joining the Adriatic sea through the six main branches of its majestic Delta (Po di Levante, Po di Maistra, Po di Pila, Po di Tolle, Po di Gnocca, Po di Goro). As it runs, it is alimented by 141 major and minor tributaries, and flows through some of the main cities of Northern Italy: Turin, Piacenza and Cremona.
In Metamorphoses, the famous Latin poet Ovid, tells the tale of Phaethon and the river Po. Son of Helios (Apollo) and Clymene, Phaethon got the Sun Chariot from his father and began a mad race with it. To stop him, Zeus struck him with a thunderbolt. The youth fell into the waters of the Po, while his grief stricken sisters were turned into poplars. The town of Crespino has a Phaethon Square, echoing these mythical events.
The Po has been the stage for important historical events, such as the Taglio of Porto Viro, an immense hydraulic work built between 1600 and 1604 by the Most Serene Republic of Venice to the detriment of the lands ruled by the Este family of Ferrara (Sacca di Goro). In order to stop Venice from being buried by the fluvial build up of the Po di Tramontana, then the northernmost branch of the river, the Venetians deviated its course southwards, thus determining the current physiognomy of the Delta.
