The municipality of Lagosanto lies in the easternmost part of the province of Ferrara, just a few kilometres from Comacchio and its marshes.
It seems that in the 8th century the religious hermit Appianus dwelled in the vicinity of the old village, on the banks of the marshy lagoon (“lago”= lake) by which it was lapped: from this circumstance the village derived its name.
The life of Lagosanto, like that of all other nearby villages, was greatly influenced by the drainage of the land, which transformed it into an agrarian village and profoundly modified the territory.
Up to the 1970s, the Canale di Marozzo passed through the center of the village; this canal, which linked Codigoro with Comacchio, may have represented the oldest route of communication in the lowland territory of the "Basso Ferrarese".
Marozzo draining plant – The House of Memory
The draining plant at Marozzo di Lagosanto is a pumping plant along the Po di Volano river. At the end of the XIX Century, in the territory of Ferrara, the Consorzio di Bonifica of the II Circondario Polesine planned a land reclamation project for the area of Grande Valle Gallare. In the same period, a technical committee was sent to Holland, in order to study new plumbing systems from that area. In 1873, the pumping plant at Marrozzo was built. Inside, the pumps from Stork &C. by Hengelo from Rotterdam were operating. This system has been modified several times, until 1986, when it was dismissed, due to the deterioration of the structures. A new draining plant was then built in the neighborhood. The old draining plant nowadays hosts the herbarium of the territory.
In the same area, the “House of Memory” has been set up, the first part of a museum and documentation centre about the ancient drainage system at Marozzo. The museum can be accessed by people with both motor disabilities and visual impairments, and it has gained the patronage of RAI Social secretariat. (Currently closed to the public).
Every year in May, Lagosanto becomes the capital city of juicy and sweet-smelling strawberries, with the Strawberry Festival. The symbol of Lagosanto for many years, more than 90% of the strawberries produced in Italy come from this town.
