Lake Maggiore (Madjō´ray), the largest of the Italian lakes, is about forty-five miles in length, averages three miles in breadth, lies six hundred and forty-six feet above sea-level, and has a maximum depth of one thousand two hundred and fifty feet. The river Ticino flows through it. In a southwestern expansion of the lake are the Borromean Isles. On the Isola Bella is the large palace built by Count Vitaleo Borromeo about a century ago, with terraced gardens, fountains, grottoes, etc., all very elaborate and artificial.
Lake Garda, a beautiful, clear lake, lies between Lombardy and Venetia, its northern end extending into the Austrian Tyrol. Situated two hundred and twenty-six feet above sea-level, it has an area of one hundred and fifteen square miles, a greatest length of thirty-five miles, a breadth of two to eleven miles, and a maximum depth of nine hundred and sixty-seven feet. The surface is studded with many islands. It is drained by the Mincio, a tributary of the Po. The mild climate and the beauty of the vicinity have caused its shores to be lined with villas.
Climatic and Landscape Features.—The north of Italy has the excessive climate of the temperate region of continental Europe; in the central parts of the peninsula the climate becomes more genial and sunny, and to the south almost tropical. The plain of Lombardy, with an average temperature of fifty-five degrees Fahrenheit, has winters which are as cold as those of the Scottish lowlands, and the lagoons of Venice have been frozen over; but its summers are as hot as those of Rome or Nice. The changes are few; rain lasts for weeks together in autumn, but in summer the blue sky is never clouded except when a violent thunder and hailstorm occurs.
About Florence the winters are much milder, with the same summer heat, and this difference between the seasons decreases still more to southward.
The summer of the Campagna of Rome, when a heat mist rises over the plain, is almost unbearable; in January the sky is blue, the mornings may be frosty, and fresh spring air blows over the land; in March the trees are already leafy, and in June the harvest begins; in July everything withers under the excessive heat, till the autumn rains revive the land.
In Naples and South Italy the sky is cloudless for months together, and the air is so pure that distant plains appear to be close at hand.
The chief faults of the Italian climate are the cold mountain winds called the Tramontana, like the mistral of south France, and the Bora of the north Adriatic, and, in contrast, the hot Sirocco, which occasionally blows from the African deserts, besides the malaria of the western coast marshes and of the Venetian lagoons.
Round the lakes at the base of the steep southern slope of the Alps, Mediterranean forms of vegetation appear; the chestnut reaches up to two thousand five hundred feet; above that comes the belt of beeches and oaks, still higher the pine woods, then the pretty alpine plants and high pastures. Scarcely any part of the world is so covered with irrigating canals as the highly cultivated plain of Lombardy, so that the whole of it appears like a great garden. At the northern base of the Apennines the Mediterranean flora of laurels and myrtles, cork oak and cypress, covers the first slopes; above that groups of oaks appear, then beech woods and the extensive summer pastures which reach all over the Apennine range. The Apennines have no permanent snows, but their highest summits are frequently snow-clad between October and May, and send down cold breezes into the warm valleys.
In Sicily the vegetation takes an African character, and many tropical forms flourish; it is not a well-wooded island, but forests occur here and there.
Riviera (Ree-vee-ay´ra “seashore”), is a term applied to the narrow strip of coast-land bordering the Gulf of Genoa, strictly from Nice to Spezzia, but generally understood to include the whole coast of the Alps Maritimes, and the Italian coast as far as Leghorn.