Last modified: 2004-07-31 by ivan sache
Keywords: vaucluse | isle-sur-la-sorgue (l') |
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![[Flag of l'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue]](../images/f/fr-84-is.gif)
by Pascal
Vagnat
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L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue (15,000 inhabitants) is located 25 km east of Avignon in the former Comtat Venaissin. The city is surrounded and crossed by several arms and diversion canals of the river Sorgue, and therefore nicknamed "Venice of the Comtat".
In the Middle Ages, the city was a fishers' village established on an
island (Latin, insula, which gave in the XIIth century isle, later
île, the dropped "s" being shown by a circonflex accent placed on the
i) of the river Sorgue. The Sorgue (more exactly Sorgue de Vaucluse, 36
km) emerges from the cave of Fontaine-de-Vaucluse and flows into the
river Ouvèze, tributary of the Rhône. The Fontaine-de-Vaucluse was
magnified by the Italian poet Petrarch (1304-1374) and its exact origin
in still unknown in spite of numerous investigations, for instance by
commandant Cousteau. The plain between the plateau of Vaucluse and the
Rhône, mostly a triangle limited by the cities of Avignon, Carpentras
and Cavaillon, is watered by a dense networks of rivers locally called
sorgues. It was in the past a marshy area, as shown by the toponym
Althen-des-Paluds, palud being the old French word for a marsh.
The marshes around l'Isle were progressively drained. The five main
canals crossing the city flow into a main canal located slightly out of
the city, under the Five W