Peschiere e tecniche di pesca a Taranto, tra Medioevo ed Età moderna

Throughout history, the economy of Taranto has been based on fishing. Thus, fishing has become a source of income for its citizens and an essential aspect of the city’s identity. Besides fishing − practiced with naviculae and lentrones (small flatboats) from the 12th century onwards − intensive aquaculture practiced in the fishing farms of the Mar Piccolo has also been significant. The terms piscarìa or piscara and vivaria define portions of seawater, differing in size and delimited by a piling system anchored into the seabed. In these places, the Curia regis, the concessionaires or the lessees exercised their exclusive fishing rights. Detailed evidence on fishing practices is available in written sources. They provide us with rather valuable data, especially if we consider that these types of farms have rarely left material traces due to their perishable building materials (poles, nets, ropes) and the difficulty in recognizing them (think, for instance, of the stone blocks used to attach the piling). The majority of the Tarentine fishing farms were located near the Mar Piccolo entrance and along its inner coast. Thirty of them are known and were exploited by the clergy, the leading religious authorities, and private citizens. While oyster farming is well attested for the Roman age, less information is available on mussel farming. Indeed, this type of aquaculture is not testified before the 15-16th c., when the first farms were installed. In the following century, this production increased greatly and became an important characteristic of the local economy. Fishing and aquaculture were strictly regulated with a set of norms and rules deriving from Byzantine law. From the 15th c., they were recorded and constantly updated in the Libro Rosso di Taranto, also known as the Manoscritto Acclavio. Not only does this code provide us with information on the seawater exploitation system, but also on fishing techniques, regulations, and tools’ names. Many of these practices remained unchanged throughout antiquity and became part of the fishing tradition of Taranto. Among the primary fishing techniques, Tarentine fishers mastered pot traps − baskets made of willow and used on rocky sea bottoms rich in vegetation − and trawls − preferred for shallow seabeds and dragged by two fishers’ teams directly from the ground.