The Riviera of Brenta of Venice
The Riviera of the Venetian Villas!
The Riviera of Brenta near Venice is made up of the towns of:
- Campagna Lupia
- Campolongo Maggiore
- Camponogara
- Dolo
- Fiesso d'Artico
- Fossò
- Mira
- Pianiga
- Stra
- Vigonovo.
The River of Brenta has always been a very busy trade artery, by day and even, with the use of torches and lanterns, by night. Large boats, similar to the burchiello which can still be seen on the river today, loaded high with goods, carried flour, vegetables, gravel, hay, wine, sheep, calves, and goats from inland and spices, bales of cloth, oils, soap, glass, books and fish from Venice.
The spread of villas of the aristocracy along the course of the Brenta from Malcontenta to Stra was a phenomenon which, for the two centuries between 1500 and 1700, gave testimony to Venetian power and the inclination of its ruling elite towards ostentatious theatricality, even in the moment of a decline which came, however, with a flash of magnificence.
Interest in the area was not confined to its amenities as a rural hinterland, although it was, in fact, a repository of resources; it seems anomalous, but the most valuable resource for the Venetians, hemmed in by stretches of salt water, was the water of the river, which was transported to the city in "burchiello" converted as tankers.
Before it was the Brenta of the villas it was the Brenta of the inns, where you could eat or take lodgings, of the post houses and the locks which served to overcome the waterlevel change, allowing navigation up and down river.
By the end of the 1400's it was already a considerable status symbol to have a villa on the river and to enjoy the summer with friends and relatives or important foreign visitors. Famous architects and painters were employed, from Andrea Palladio to Count Girolamo Frigimelica, from Vincenzo Scamozzi toBaldassare Longhena, from Giovanni Battista Zelotti to Giannantonio Pellegrini, to Giambattista Tiepolo, to Guaranà, to Zais. The visual effect of the building, with its surroundings an gardens, had to be powerful, indeed it had to strike visitors and travellers with an overdose of artistic and natural beauty combined in the architectural complex.
