River
Fluvius Meduacum
(branch of Brenta) (Barrington)
Listen to the story
Fluvius Meduacum corresponds to the Brenta in the Veneto, a river that in Roman times flowed close to the walls of Padua. The map lets it rise from a long mountain chain, wind across the roads from Vicenza to Oderzo and to Padua, and end in the Po, which is wrong, for the river actually reached the Adriatic through the lagoon. Only one river is drawn, yet two stations on the coast road, Maio Meduaco and Mino Meduaco, recall its greater and lesser mouths, just as the Roman writer Pliny speaks of two Meduaci. The modern name already appears elsewhere on the Tabula, as a river called Brintesia.