Enrico Del Vasto, the progenitor of the Del Carretto family, lived in the twelfth century and participated in the Second Crusade (1147-1148). In 1162, Frederick Barbarossa assigned a feud to “Henry the Brave”, a nickname which he had acquired during the crusade, of vast territories stretching between Savona and the Bormida Valley up to the Langhe area, thus giving rise to the dynasty of the Marquises Del Carretto. He was chancellor and advisor to the Emperor and, as his plenipotentiary, negotiated the Peace of Constance with the Lombard League.

Enrico del Vasto, the progenitor of the Del Carretto family, fought in the Holy Land where he was involved, surely not willingly, in a battle. In fact, he was in those lands to better administer the Liguriancommercial affairs. Wthout having recognized him, he fought with his best friend, Prince Tosbeo, who had saved him from robbers in the Holy Land, and killed him. As he was dying, the prince took off his helmet and asked him for help: Enrico pressed his five bloodstained fingers on his coat and when he returned to his estates, he wanted to remember that brutal fact: thus, his coat of arms was five red stripes on a gold background.

Nevertheless, his remorse was great for having done what he would never have wanted to do to that friend who had saved him from death so many times. He arrived in these his lands and asked himself: "What should I do?". He started down a road and came upon the Bormida river, and heard a bell ringing: it was precisely that of the abbey of San Quintino, whose bells were heard when the monks went to pray at about seven o'clock in the evening. He knelt down, took his sword and threw it into the river: "I will never fight again, I do not want to know anything more about fighting or death, and as long as I shall live, peace will reign." But looking up at the darkened sky, he saw the North Star that indicates the right way to sailors and wayfarers and addressing it, said: "What can I do? You who indicate the right way to everyone, indicate it to me too." At that moment, he saw the Little Dipper: “Behold! The del Carrettos' coat of arms will be golden with five red stripes and the emblem of Little Dipper.”

The Osiglietta dam, built between 1937 and 1939, is located in the municipality of Osiglia in the Osiglietta river valley, a tributary of the Bormida river. It is classified as a masonry dome dam, as it is has a double-arch, spanning both vertically and horizontally from bank to bank.

The House at the Bottom of the Lake, Andrea Botto | Osiglia

The work was constructed of reinforced concrete with two rows of vertical and horizontal rods placed at 20 cm from the vestments. The upstream façade is concrete is covered by a layer 3 cm thick of gunite (sprayed cement), while the downstream façade is made of exposed concrete.

The dam has 16 radial joints and a perimeter joint: its holding strength is made up of a butt strap beam superimposed on bituminized felt and a copper plate towards upstream and an iron plate in the downstream direction; inside it, clogging injections were made after the withdrawal of the concrete.
The foundation is a dosseret connected to the dam body by means of a perimeter joint.
The dam is provided with a surface drainage system, a bottom drainage duct, and an exhaust duct.

Dam height: 70,70 m
Catchment area: 20,50 km2
Volume of reservoir: 13.040.000 m3
Maximum reservoir quota: 638,60 slm
Maximum regulation quota: 637,00 m slm
Dam crest development: 224 m
Maximum outflow capacity: 675 m3/s
Maximum derivable flow: 10 m3/s
Power stations fueled: Cairo and Spigno through auction; Millesimo

In many recreational activities the participant is re- quired to launch an object either for distance, accuracy, or both; examples of such objects are a baseball, javelin, rifle bullet, golf ball, ski jumper, discus, and arrow. Once the object is launched with its initial speed and direction, the only major forces that affect its path ofmotion are the body force due to gravity and air friction or viscous drag. In most cases, the factor that limits performance is air friction. Its minimization is the target ofphysical technique and equipment design. As examples, the ski jumper strives to maintain aerodynamic orientation of the skis and body, and a golfball is dimpled to cause the air boundary layer to trip from laminar to turbulent to reduce the drag coefficient. In all cases, however, air friction diminishes the horizontal component of the object's velocity throughout its flight.

The casting offishing lures is quite similar to the launch- ing of the objects just described except that an additional force acts on the cast lure. The lure is tethered to the angler via the fishing line, ostensibly to allow the angler to reel in the fish but more realistically to allow retrieval of the empty lure.

The flying lure, Andrea Botto | Murialdo

When the lure is cast with the aid ofthe fishing rod, the lure's motion is resisted by air friction and is also re- tarded by the force necessary to payout the line. Hence, its horizontal velocity decreases at even a greater rate than ifit were in free flight. It is easy to visualize that as the fishing lure becomes progressively lighter with a large drag coefficient, it will become virtually impossible to launch it as a projectile for any useful distance. That is precisely the problem that faces the angler who uses artificial flies as lures.

The flying lure, Andrea Botto

Fishing flies are designed to imitate floating insects. They are very light with a relatively large volume offeath- ers and fur so the surface tension acting on the large surface area can "float" the fly. Because of the large surface area, the fly's motion during a cast is easily dominated by air friction. For example, to cast a typical fishing fly horizon- tally 20 m from a height of 1.5 m, and no line were even attached to it, an initial velocity in excess of 140 mls (3l3 mph) would be required, a prohibitive condition indeed.

The solution to the flyfisher's dilemma is to cast a rather massive line to which the fly is attached and allow the fly to go along for the ride. As a result of this symbiotic relation- ship between line and fly, the fly (as the launched object) demonstrates a behavior during flight that is unique from all others: it accelerates horizontally. While this effect may be intuitively disconcerting, the predicting physics are quite straightforward.