Volterra
and Larderello spas (Volterra Pisa)
(see Volterra)
The town of Volterra and
Larderello
Today Volterra counts about 12,500
inhabitants, 4,000 of whom live in the historical center,
that is in the part of the town enclosed in its mediaeval
walls.Larderello in Volterra Pisa geothermal power station,
where since 1905 the inhabitants of this town have been
exploiting underground vapour in order to produce electric
current.
Olives, wine and cereals are the principal agricultural
produce. The extravergin olive oil produced on these hills
is particularly fragrant and of highest quality.
Also the volterran white truffels have become famous for
their intense fragrance.
The thermal spas
La Perla Thermal spas Le Terme di La Perla
Curable diseases
Affections of the respiratory system, Gynecological ailments
Rheumatic arthropaties Colitis Gastritis Gastroduodenitis
Skin diseases Neuralgia Neuritis Metabolic ailments
Affezioni delle vie respiratorie Affezioni ginecologiche
Artroreumopatie Coliti Gastriti Gastroduodeniti Malattie
della pelle Malattie del ricambio Nevriti Nevralgie Stipsi
The water
Solfurea - alcalino - bicarbonata, stronzio - bario
Visit also: the Museum of the Geotermia
- to visit, with Timetable: -
winter time : from the 15 september to 15 March
from the monday to the friday from hours 8,00 to hours 12
(last income) and from hours 13,30 to hours 16,30 (last
income) with closing to hours 17. Festive saturday and closed
Sunday from hours 09,00 to hours 12 (last income) and from
hours 13,30 to hours 17,30 (last income) with closing to
hours 18.
summer time: from 16 March to the 14 september
from the monday to the friday from hours 9,00 to hours 12
(last income) and from hours 13,30 to hours 17,30 (last
income) with closing to hours 18. Festive saturdays Sunday
and from hours 10,00 to hours 12 (last income) and from
hours 13,30 to hours 18,30 (last ingresso)con closing to
hours 19.
The museum currently is accommodated in
an attended temporary system in that it has been restored
the Palace de Larderel that will accommodate it in definitive
way: through a chronological distance the museum travels
over again, also by means of photographies, instruments
and machinery of age, the history of I use of the geothermal
energy.
They can also be seen knows it of plastics
and the lagone " to it covered ": moreover, if
it comes caught up a number of fifteen persons, it can be
assisted of a live "soffione" and Is's guarantee
to you that truly impressive what is one because the vapor
but, above all, the noise is something not easy to forget.
Useful numbers
In order to contact the museum with telephone: +39 0588-67724
with fax +39 0588-22555
Lardarello history
it is at 390 m s.l.m. to the center of goes called them
" Valle del diavolo " because it introduces the
fumigante landscape of the soffioni with the characteristic
columns vapor white women, the gigantic cooling towers of
centers them electrical workers (high until 75 m.) and,
above all, the ragnatela of the silver-plated ducts that
covers for hundred of km. hills and the valleys and it is
the main Italian center for the boric acid production and
remarkable pole for the electric power production using
the geothermal energy.
Larderello is risen and it has been become larger around
the geothermal pools: the geothermal fields, localize to
you in wrap tirrenica center-meridional of the Tuscany,
are the outcome of geodynamic processes type good for relaxing
know from 30 million years ago, however it can calmly be
asserted that the news of the warm water existence in Tuscany
was famous to the Etruschi and the Roman, but, not only,
they used also present boric acid in these waters.
The Etruscans used boric acid, than it was deposited to
the edges of the lagoni natural, is for druggist use is
for the enamel preparation: in fact " It is gone Seals
you " of the Etruscan Museum of Arezzo contain of boron,
than then it was possible to reperire single in these places;
the Roman used of waters for the medichal properties and
indicated the place like " Aquas Volaternas "
that would be from identifying itself with the Bath to Morbo
near it puts into effect them Larderello.
This place had fortune also in the Middle
Ages and in the Rinascimento a lot that Lorenzo the Magnificent
, that it attended these baths, only held the key of a bath
for if and for its family: in the Middle Ages from the lagoni
natural it came extracted sulfur, the vitriol and the alum
that the volterrani merchants sold in all Italy.
The first one to discover the boric acid
presence in waters of the lagoni natural was in the 1777
Francisco Hoefer, director of the Pharmacies of the Granducato
of Tuscany: but first tried you to produce boric acid industrially
making to evaporate waters they happened alone in 1818:
until then boric acid it came imported in Europe from Tibet,
where it came collected on the warm water small lake edges
and came called " Tinkal ", then the Arabs supplied
to the transport before in Spain and then in all the European
continent dandogli the name of " Buraq ". Like
already said, in 1818 it began the industrial exploitation
of boric acid making to evaporate boric waters in iron boilers
under which a fire was ignited using the firewood, but was
an expensive method because the firewood began to scarseggiare
and it had to be carried from more and more far places:
it was in 1827 that conte the Francois-Jacques de Larderel,
been born to Vienne in France in the region of the Delfinato,
invented a less expensive method using like thermal energy
the heat of the vapor in substitution of the heat supplied
from the firewood in order to make to evaporate boric waters.
But the Larderel was not only limited to this: for this
scope it constructed the Lagone Covered, that is a cupola
in masonry on a lagone natural that of it collected the
vapor and it let out it to a sufficient pressure for feeding
thermally the boilers of evaporation of the waters boriche.Quando
knows them boric were falls to you, contained a great water
amount, in order to eliminate which came used, at first,
a press to pressure and later on a centrifuge to vapor that,
taking advantage of the pressure of the vapor, it made to
fastly turn a small basket in which came immessi knows them
boric: these, still humid, came made to dry in the so-called
the " terraces ", that is great rooms under the
pavement di.le which circulated the vapor. In the 1828 Larderel
it began also the perforation, that greater boric water
amount had the scope of reperire one: first it blots some
of perforation came constructed in the local workshops and
had the tower in wood, with the percussion that came by
hand given from the laborers using winches: in the 1846
Granduca Leopoldo II of Tuscany, in acknowledgment to the
work of Francois de Larderel, it imposed to the plant the
name of Larderello, that it would then have identified also
the country sortovi around. In 1904 Prince Ginori Conti
succeeded to transform the force of the vapor in electric
power being ignited the first 5 light bulbs and in 1905
she came supplied electric power for the lighting system
of the factory and the country of Larderello: in 1915 entered
in exercise center it them n.1 with two groups from 2750
KW of power. In 1931, 27 March, a survey succeeded to catch
up the cliff tank distributing approximately 220 tonnellate/ora
of vapor: the soffione, called " Soffionissimo ",
constituted a so huge phenomenon to make to think that it
was not possible to bridle it; with the activity of more
and more emphasized perforation it increased to the electric
power production and were relegated in second slowly the
activities chemistries and in the 1937 the first towers
of cooling in reinforced concrete were constructed that
replaced those of wood and that they characterize all the
landscape. Currently the new center them come fed directly
from the coming from vapor from the sottosuolo and the system
of feeding with secondary vapor is being abandoned.
|
