The island of Elba, famous as the place of Napoleon’s exile, between Corsica and the peninsula, eighteen miles long, is high, its western part being formed by Mount Capanne, which rises to three thousand three hundred and twenty-three feet. Capri, south of the Bay of Naples, where the Emperor Tiberius passed the last ten years of his life, and Caprera, Garibaldi’s home, on the north coast of Sardinia, are other noteworthy islands.
Rivers and Coast Waters.—The principal rivers are fed from the Alpine lakes. The Po, which descends from Monte Viso, on the western frontier, and, as it sweeps across the plain, receives the contributions of numerous important streams, ranks for its volume of water among the notable rivers of Europe. It is navigable for three hundred and twenty out of its four hundred and twenty miles, and several of its tributaries are also navigable. Many of the Po’s tributaries spread out at the foot of the Alps.
The province of Venice, to the north and east of the Po, is traversed by the Adige, Brenta, Piave and Tagliamento.
Along the coast of the Adriatic, north and south of the Po delta, there exist large tracts of salt water, known as lagoons, in a flat and marshy district. They are separated from the sea by narrow banks of sand in which are inlets, so that the lagoons serve as harbors. The chief of these is that in which Venice is situated. It extends over nearly forty miles from Torcello in the north to Chioggia and Brondolo in the south. The other coast-line of northern Italy is formed by a narrow strip of land, closed in by the steep, abrupt rocks of the Apennines, and known as the Italian Riviera.
The Arno, next to the Tiber the most considerable river of central Italy, rises on Mount Falterona, an offset of the Apennines, at four thousand four hundred and forty-four feet above sea-level, and twenty-five miles north of Arezzo. It flows one hundred and forty miles westward to the sea, eleven miles below [512] Pisa. At Florence it is four hundred feet wide, but is fordable in summer.
The Tiber, the chief river of central Italy, and the most famous in the peninsula, rises in a dell of the Tuscan Apennines, eleven miles north of the village of Santo Stefano, whence it winds two hundred and sixty miles, and enters the Mediterranean by two branches, which enclose the Isola Sacra. Towns on or near its banks are Perugia, Orvieto, Rome and Ostia. It is navigable for boats of fifty tons to the confluence of the Nera, one hundred miles from its mouth. The Tiber is supplied mainly by turbid mountain-torrents, whence its liability to sudden overflowings. Its waters, too, are still discolored with yellow mud, as when the poet Horace described it.
Lakes.—To the south of the Alps, in the north of Lombardy and Venice, lie the beautiful Italian lakes, Lago di Garda, Maggiore, Como, Lugano, and Orto.
Lake of Como, the Lacus Larius of the Romans, is generally considered the most beautiful of the group. It is about thirty-six miles long, and its greatest width is three miles. Its shores are studded with picturesque villages and charming villas, with a background of forest and mountains, some of which are seven thousand feet high. The loveliest point is Bellagio, where the lake divides into two arms. Cadenabbia, on the western shore opposite Bellagio, is also a pleasant place.
Como, at the other extremity, is a thriving town of twenty-five thousand inhabitants, the birthplace of Pliny the Younger and of Volta. The cathedral is one of the best in Northern Italy.
Lake of Lugano, between Como and Maggiore, though much smaller than either, is scarcely their inferior in the loveliness of its scenery. It lies at the southern foot of the Alps, eight hundred and eighty-nine feet above sea-level. Its length is fourteen and one-half miles; average breadth one and one-quarter miles; area nineteen and one-half square miles; maximum depth nine hundred and fifteen feet, and average depth two hundred and forty-six feet.