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Book Chapter

The Historic Lighthouses of the Italian Coasts

  • Fabrizio Benincasa
  • Matteo De Vincenzi
  • Gianni Fasano

The tall tower building with an intense light source on the top, visible far away, called a lighthouse in English, takes its name in the Romance languages of faro. The fuels used to produce lighting have progressively adapted to the times: bundles of dry wood, olive oil, wax candles, sperm whale fat, paraffin oil, acetylene, arriving to electricity. The lighthouses didn’t only have positive aspects; in fact, they not only facilitated bearings during night navigation, but also indicated to the pirates the coastal cities to plunder. This gave rise to a sort of "land piracy" as "prankster" characters lit "fake beacons" on reefs, shoals, etc. waters where ships were stranded and were therefore more easily plundered. This work shows the current number of lighthouses in Italy, giving greater emphasis to the Italian historic lighthouses, which, by definition, are those that meet at least three of the characteristics established by IALA. As in other European countries, also in Italy the lighthouse lantern was often placed on the top of bell towers of the churches along the coastline. The oldest Italian lighthouses are on the Tyrrhenian coast the lighthouse of Rome Port and on the Adriatic coast the lighthouse of Ravenna Port. Obviously, we will only mention the lighthouses, which in our opinion are the most important and given the historicity of these we will only deal with the "bright" lighthouses, outlining the historical-geographical context within which they were built.

  • Keywords:
  • Ancient lighthouses Navigation; Ancient Meteorology; Sailing techniques,
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Fabrizio Benincasa

CNR-IBE, Institute of BioEconomy, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0002-5183-9282

Matteo De Vincenzi

CNR-IBE, Institute of BioEconomy, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0002-5698-4286

Gianni Fasano

CNR-IBE, Institute of BioEconomy, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0001-5790-6477

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  • Publication Year: 2024
  • Pages: 557-572

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  • Publication Year: 2024

Chapter Information

Chapter Title

The Historic Lighthouses of the Italian Coasts

Authors

Fabrizio Benincasa, Matteo De Vincenzi, Gianni Fasano

Language

Italian

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-0556-6.49

Peer Reviewed

Publication Year

2024

Copyright Information

© 2024 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Bibliographic Information

Book Title

Tenth International Symposium Monitoring of Mediterranean Coastal Areas: Problems and Measurement Techniques

Book Subtitle

Livorno (Italy) 11th-13th June 2024

Editors

Laura Bonora, Marcantonio Catelani, Matteo De Vincenzi, Giorgio Matteucci

Peer Reviewed

Publication Year

2024

Copyright Information

© 2024 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Publisher Name

Firenze University Press

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-0556-6

eISBN (pdf)

979-12-215-0556-6

eISBN (xml)

979-12-215-0557-3

Series Title

Monitoring of Mediterranean Coastal Areas: Problems and Measurement Techniques

Series E-ISSN

2975-0288

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