History of the Trabocchi

The Trabocchi Coast is so named because of the widespread presence of ancient “fishing machines” suspended over the sea, called trabocchi. These wooden pile-like constructions, connected to the coast by a long and bold footbridge, ensured stability for seafarers as they could fish there without straying far from the coast. In this part of Abruzzo, the fishing technique known as “sight fishing” was practiced, and in some cases is still practiced. What does it consist of? Through the booms extending from the overflow and a complex system of winches, a fine-mesh net is lowered and laid on the seabed. When the overflower sees the school of fish pass over the net, he quickly pulls it up carrying the catch out of the water.

Over time these structures have captured the imagination and fantasy of many artists, including the famous writer Gabriele D’Annunzio, who in his novel “Triumph of Death” published in 1894 likened them to “colossal spiders” and described them as follows: “The machine that seemed to live by its own harmony, to have an air and effigy of an animated body. The wood exposed for years and years to the sun, the rain, the gust, showed all its fibers, put out all its roughness and all its nocchi“.

Their origin is uncertain, and it is difficult to determine exactly when they were invented. According to some historians, it was even the Phoenicians who taught local fishermen how to make these masterpieces of rustic engineering, able to defy wind and currents.

The first document that mentions the Abruzzi trabocchi is the manuscript “Vita Sanctissimi Petri Celestini” (15th century) by Father Stefano Tiraboschi, in which the friar, narrating Pietro da Morrone’s stay at the Monastery of San Giovanni in Venere (1240-1243), refers to the latter’s appreciation of the “landscape dotted with trabocchi.” However, scholars disagree on this interpretation because they believe they were born later.

Other scholars say they appeared on the Abruzzi coast around 1620, following the migration of some French families who moved to the area fleeing the earthquake that devastated San Severo di Foggia.

Themost credited hypothesis dates them back to the 18th century, when, as a result of a large-scale clearing of the coast to make room for cultivation, Dalmatian laborers were employed, the largest group of whom bore the surname Vrì, which was later changed to Verì, the most recurring surname among the owners of the Abruzzi coast’s trabocchi.

Of the many trabocchi that dotted the coast, several were lost due to poor maintenance and bad weather. Those that survive have been rediscovered as historical and cultural evidence, to be preserved and passed on to new generations. Some of them have been converted into restaurants where it is possible to enjoy traditional Abruzzo seafood dishes, perhaps in front of a romantic sunset.

The uncertainty regarding the origins could not but affect the name as well. Indeed, there are various hypotheses about the etymology of overflow. The term, traceable to the dialectal form “travocche,” is believed to derive from the Latin word “trabs” (wood, tree, house). Other hypotheses have it derived from “trabocchetto,” referring to the trap set for fish, or from “trabiccolo,” the tool used in olive presses to squeeze olives, very similar to the winch located on the trabocco.