3o 



Cardinal Palotta is ranked as one of the greatest of 

 Comacchio's benefactors and well may that be for under 

 his enlightened guidance the fish-rearing establishment 

 attained full development. On the completion of his 

 schemes the lagoon had practically the same area and 

 arrangement seen by Coste fifty years ago. Whether the 

 conversion of the Mezzano marshes into a vast and very 

 shallow fish-pond has been justified by experience is 

 however doubtful, for since Palotta's time there have 

 been repeated periods of great depression in the industry 

 caused by excessive and wholesale mortality among the 

 fish of the great ponds furthest removed from the sea; 

 the Valle Mezzano in particular being the one most 

 frequently the scene of frightful fish mortality. 



With the exception of the sixteen years between 1 708 

 and 1 724 when the Austrian Government held possession, 

 the lagoon remained under Papal Government from the 

 end of the 16th century until the close of the iSth century 

 when Buonaparte in 1797 seized it during his campaign 

 against Venice. Bein£ loot he could not remove to 

 Paris, he wisely sold it to the Commune of Comacchio. 

 The ensuing sixteen years are perhaps the most notable 

 in the history of the establishment; they far exceeded in 

 continuous prosperity any other cycle we know of for 

 Pepoli * records that the average yearly revenue for 

 these years amounted to no less a sum than 567,749 lire 

 (Rs. 3,40,650) ; since then both the revenue and the 

 annual catch of fish have suffered cycles of violent fluc- 

 tuations. On the whole the condition and revenue of the 

 lagoon were not satisfactory during the last seventy-five 

 years of the 19th century. At present the lagoon as a 

 fishery establishment, is enjoying a period of renewed 

 prosperity due partly to climatic causes, partly to more 

 careful and scientific management, and partly to the 

 reclamation and utilization as agricultural land of large 

 areas of the least productive fish-farms. 



Principles and Details of the System. 



The principles governing the system of fry capture 

 and fish-rearing practised at Comacchio are essentially 

 the same as those forming the basis of the Arcachon 



Fide Bullo, Piscicultura marina, part i, p. 365, Padua 1S91. 



