Adria is a town in the province of Rovigo in the Veneto region of Northern Italy, situated between the mouths of the rivers Adige and Po. It is the seat of a diocese, unlike Rovigo itself.

The Etruscan city of Adria ("Hatria") underlies the modern city, three to four meters below the current level. Adria ("Hatria") gave its name at any early period to the Adriatic Sea, to which it was connected through channels . Adria and Spina were the Etruscan ports and depots for Felsina (now Bologna).

History

For the ecclesiastical history, see Bishopric of Adria

The Etruscan-controlled area of the Po Valley was generally known as Padan Etruria (Padan refers to the Po River), as opposed to their main concentration along the Tyrrhenian coast south of the Arno. The Villanovan culture, named for an archaeological site at the village of Villanova, near Bologna (Etruscan Felsina), flourished in this area from the 10th century until as late as the 6th century.

Mass Celtic incursions into the Po valley resulted in friction between the Gauls and Etruscans, and also intermarriage, attested by epigraphic inscriptions where Etruscan and Celtic names appear together.

Pliny the Elder, a Roman author and fleet commander, wrote about a system of channels in Atria that was, "first made by the Tuscans 1, thus discharging the flow of the river across the marshes of the Atriani called the Seven Seas, with the famous harbor of the Tuscan town of Atria which formerly gave the name of Atriatic to the sea now called the Adriatic." Pliny's "Seven Seas" were interlinked coastal lagoons, separated from the open sea by sandspits and barrier islands. The Etruscans extended this natural inland waterway with new canals to extend the navigation possibilities of the tidal reaches of the Po all the way north to Atria. As late as the time of the emperor Vespasian, shallow draft galleys could still be rowed from Ravenna into the heart of Etruria.

Under Roman occupation the town lost importance to the former Greek colony Ravenna as the continued siltation of the Po delta carried the seafront farther to the east. The sea is now about 22 km from Adria.

The first exploration of ancient Atria was carried out by Carlo Bocchi and published as Importanza di Adria la Veneta. The collections of the Bocchi family were given to the public at the beginning of the twentieth century and comprise a major part of the city museum collection of antiquities.

See also

• Bishopric of Adria''
• Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Adria
• Conservatory of Music 'Antonio Buzzolla'

Sources and external links

• Northern Etruria
• Etruscan Engineering and Agriculture
• International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: "Adria"
• Richard Stillwell, ed. Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites, 1976: "Adria (Atria), Veneto, Italy
• Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Adria