Top 8 Natural Monuments around Roncade

Much water flows around the historic old town of Treviso

A former port site, lovingly transformed into a park, with historical images. A must-see, and not just for historians.

The Botteniga is a resurgence river in the Veneto-Friuli plain. It rises a few kilometers north of the city of Treviso (San Pelaio); shortly after it receives the waters of the La Cerca canal, the Pegorile and the Piavesella di Nervesa and then divides into several branches at the gates of the walls of Treviso, near the Ponte de Pria: • The Cagnan Grande or della Pescheria; • The Cagnan Medio or canale dei Buranelli (0.743 km); • The Cagnan della Roggia or Siletto (1.117 km); • The Convertite or Santa Sofia canal (0.882 km, mostly buried); • the canal that laps the outside of the walls on the eastern side (the western one has been buried). This system is actually part of a notable work of hydraulic engineering designed in the sixteenth century by Giovanni Giocondo for the defense of the walls. All the branches finally flow into the hydrographic left of the Sile river. The waters of the Botteniga also feed the spring from which the Cantarane canal flows (0.447 km, now mostly filled in).

The old name of the Meolo river is Pero. This is why, in these parts, river and place names blend together

The sources of the Meolo river are about 200 m away. from the bridge, unfortunately it was not possible to approach them because they were fenced off. It originates east of Breda di Piave, in the Campagne area, and flows for about twenty kilometers in the provinces of Treviso and Venice, crossing, among others, San Biagio di Callalta and Monastery of Treviso. At the town of the same name, the river bifurcates: the new main axis, maintaining the name of the Meolo river, heads south and flows shortly afterwards into the Vallio; the historic course, called the Meolo flowway, moves towards the south-east and its waters flow partly into the Colatore Principale reclamation canal and partly, by means of a structure that bypasses the previous watercourse, into the Fossetta canal. This situation is the result of the reclamation that affected the Lower Piave and was completed in the 1930s. Along its course there are country residences built by Venetian families between the 15th and the 19th centuries as well as the former Abbey of Santa Maria di Pero

The park that stands at the ancient river port of Noventa di Piave can be reached from the city center through the embankment tunnel. The origin of the river port of Noventa dates back to the 10th century and is due to the will of Pietro Orseolo II (991-1009) Doge of the Serenissima. Thanks to his diplomatic skills, the doge managed to obtain a series of concessions on the Venetian mainland from the German emperor Otto III (980-1002). Among these in 996, the year in which the emperor went down to Italy to be crowned by the pope, he obtained the power to build a port and a market on the Piave, where Noventa now stands. The choice fell on this area because it was the terminal point of navigation on the Piave and was crossed by a road, the Calnova, which followed the path of an ancient Roman road linking the city of Altino and the territory of Opitergino (Oderzo). .

Between 1911 and the 1920s the area was used as a quarry, known locally as the Barina quarry[1], of which a pile of gravel still remains visible. Between the two world wars the area hosted a squero[2]. From the archaeological research carried out between 2014 and 2015[3], it emerged that between the years 1974-75, 13 burci, traditional transport boats, were abandoned on the site, of which three were with certainty (having archaeologists found the documents) of property of the shipowner Dante Bernardi. By comparing aerial photos of the time and photos from private collections, archaeologists have documented that before 1974-75 at least 8 wrecks were already present on the site. Between the late 1970s and mid-1980s, 4 shipwrecks disappeared from the site entirely. Research is continuing to determine further data on the wrecks present and the history of the site which takes its name from the burci, a class of flat-bottomed river transport boats, typical of the P

At the current state of archaeological research, nineteen wrecks of traditional transport boats have been recorded[4]. Among these, different types of traditional Venetian boats have been identified: 3 gabarres 5 burci 2 comacine 2 modified burci with mirror bow for excavation 3 batei 1 mouse 1 small boat 2 boats of unknown type Out of nineteen wrecks surveyed, the original documents of three boats were recovered, the oldest of which dates back to 1937. The documents found provided relevant data on the life of these boats and information on their owners. Only further archival investigations and technical/archaeological analyzes will be able to provide useful elements for dating the other wrecks present on the site.