Comacchio is the most original and fascinating historic town in the Po Delta. Heir to ancient Spina, fought over by Ferrara and Ravenna, Popes and Emperors for centuries, its origins go far back: it rose up on 13 islets at the dawn of the Middle Ages and founded its urban and economic development exclusively on the water. Fishing, fish-breeding in the lagoon and producing salt were the source of its prosperity and also of its setbacks as they brought it into conflict with Venice. Today, Comacchio still boasts unique, intact architectural features; a town of canals, palaces and monumental bridges, inhabited by people with a strong sense of identity who are proud of their origins.

Pomposa Abbey is a Benedictine monastery in the comune of Codigoro near Ferrara, Italy.[1] It was one of the most important in northern Italy, famous for the Carolingian manuscripts preserved in its rich library, one of the wealthiest of Carolingian repositories,[2] and for the Romanesque buildings.

The earliest report of a Benedictine abbey at this site dates from 874, by which time Pomposa was already a center of sophisticated Carolingian art[3] The settlement was probably two centuries earlier, founded at some point following the devastation of Classe, the port of Ravenna (574)[4] during the Lombard epoch of northern Italy by monks of the Irish missionary, Columbanus. A letter of c. 1093 mentions among classical texts acquired or copied for the library by the abbot Girolamo alludes to Horace (Carmen Saeculare, Satires, Epistles), Virgil's Georgics, Juvenal, Persius, Quintilian, Terence's Andria, Jerome's preface to the history of Eusebius, Cicero's De officiis and De oratore, the abridgement of Livy called Periochae[5] and the Mathematica of Julius Firmicus Maternus.[6]

Until the 14th century the abbey had possessions in the whole of Italy, making its cartulary of more than local importance,[7] but later declined due to impoverishment of the neighbouring area owing to the retreat of the sea front and the increasing presence of malaria of the lower Po valley. It played an important role in the culture of Italy thanks to the work of its scribe monks and in part to the sojourn at Pomposa of Peter Damian.[8] In this abbey Guido d'Arezzo invented the modern musical notation in the early 11th century.[9]

The monks of Pomposa migrated to San Benedetto, Ferrara, 1650, leaving the abbey unoccupied. In the 19th century the abbey was acquired by the Italian government.