Front Page - The navigli was a system of navigable and interconnected canals around Milan, in Lombardy, Northern Italy. Originally intended for irrigation, quickly the canals were used to take salt, grain, wine, manufactured goods, fabric, tableware, manure and ash upriver to Lake Maggiore and Switzerland, bringing back livestock, cheese, hay, coal, lumber, sand, marble and granite. Many barges of different size and dimension were used to ship these goods until seventies.