River
Fl. Fine
Fine
Listen to the story
The small Tuscan river Fine, drawn on the Tabula without a written name, once marked a border of real weight. It divided the lands of Pisa from those of Volterra, and from 266 BC until the age of Sulla it was the frontier of Roman Italy itself. Its name probably comes from the Latin finis, border, as does the road station Ad Fines beside its mouth, a memory also kept by the church of Santa Maria ad Finem. The map places the mouth correctly but lets the river rise in the Apennines, so its winding line crosses the Via Cassia and the road from Pisa to Florence, crossings that never existed.