Page 13 - Caorle Journal Giugno 2023

Le origini| 13

BACK TO THE ROOTS

BETWEEN PAST AND PRESENT

At the end of the 20th century, four divers off Caorle found the wreck current Caorle, a city with a strong nautical vocation and an
of an ancient Roman ship. important f ishing hub.
It is a sensational discovery a few miles off the coast and a few years Finally, the leading tourist profile of Caorle (which is the ninth tourist
after 2000, which started a series of underwater campaigns. Thus, city in Italy) dates back to a contemporary of Pliny, Petronius Arbiter,
ancient wine jugs, millstones, lead anchor stocks and much more were who is said to have been the first tourist in these areas.
brought to light. The heritage of the past is brought to light and reveals a Roman
While these finds reached the surface, the history of Caorle went back Caorle bearing traces of the present one: two sides of the same coin,
to its root, writing a missing chapter of ancient times. two shores, the daughters of the same sea, the Adriatic.
A double vertical movement of surfacing and immersion in the past Thus, the same sea that separated them and kept its riches for centuries
that turns out to be intrinsically cyclical. now lets them re-emerge and, with the same ability of water to ref lect
For Caorle, the rediscovery of its Roman origin is a way of recovering light, makes them meet and mutually connect.
what the ancients have somehow already done to us: they have The Latin and contemporary Caorle, facing the same sea, are ref lected
designed our present. in the water and stare at each other.
Pliny the Elder talked about the current Falconera port calling They are related through small clues and rewrite each other by
it Reatinum, one of the major ports of the Adriatic Sea, where the building a bridge between past and future, a solid bridge like the
imperial triremes embarked and disembarked boats and men. ones that only Caorle, thanks to its familiarity with water, can build.
The Latin writer of the 1st century AD predicted the nature of the