Trent occupies a place majeure in the annals of European land reclamation history. A city ruled by ecclesiastical lords until recent, Trent continuously challenged a landscape dominated by water, creating an early medieval economic boom that made it the jewel of the Adige Valley. Known to its German-speaking population as Etschtal, the valley stretches from Merano to Bolzano, and occupies the Alpine heartlands of the Italian autonomous province of Trentino Alto-Adige. Here, ongoing battles against water have forced political power to move between centralization and decentralization, responding to dynamic processes of agrarian change. To this day, the city surrenders its political fate to an ambitious and ongoing flood-prevention program that seeks to subdue the capricious hydrology of the Adige Valley. A tourist visiting the city for the first time cannot help but feel amazed at the modern hydraulic works built to control river waters. Dikes, embankments, drainage channels, and navigation canals extending from the Upper Adige below Bolzano to Verona in the Po Valley add a particular charm to the river. From the nineteenth century onward, these works transformed the Adige into a ‘well-disciplined river.’ The Roman ‘Ponte Pietra’ bridge that crosses the river in Verona and the ‘Ponte Scaligero’ bridge are ‘silent witnesses’ à la Le Corbusier of an enduring love affair between the city and its river.