Leonardo’s Ferry Left High and Dry by Global Warming and Red Tape

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https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/23/world/europe/italy-climate-drought-da-vinci-ferry-imbersago.html

By Jason Horowitz, The New York Times. 

Excerpt: Since at least 500 years ago, when the opposing banks of the Adda belonged to the Duchy of Milan and the Republic of Venice, ferries have run on water currents and a taut rope above a narrow stretch of the river. Leonardo spent a lot of time in the area and sketched the motorless ferry around 1513. ...But a year after Italy’s worst drought in seven decades — when much of Europe gasped for precipitation — a winter without much rain or snow has turned into a dry spring across the country’s north. ...the scarcity of rainfall, which has also hit the Adda, where swans glide on water so low that islands have emerged, rowboats are beached and the last of what the town calls “Leonardesque” ferries has become a stationary landmark....

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