The land of Piave River
Noventa has its roots in the banks of the Piave river and the stream of the water defines its history. The surrounding of the city and the mainland are rich in evocative trails that will lead to the discovery of natural paradises, corners filled with culture, history, art, memories from the Great War, and ancient manors.
The archaeological finds prove that the area was inhabited as early as the 1st century B.C. as a part of nearby Oderzo, not far from the important road axis of the Via Annia leading to Altino. In particular, a small Romanesque church emerged in the first layer, the primitive parish church dedicated to St. Maurus, which was subsequently destroyed in the mid-15th century to make way for the larger church destined to last until 1917. In the layer below, a Roman villa dating from the 4th century A.D., and in the deepest layer another more ancient Roman settlement, datable to the 1st century B.C., were discovered. Two splendid mosaics with geometric patterns, datable to the end of the 4th century and part of the Roman villa, were also revealed, as well as several fragments of Gothic frescoes from the ancient parish church.
Recovered by the Archaeological Superintendency, the artifacts have been restored and placed in the Permanent Archaeological Exhibition in the Council Chamber of the Town Hall.
In the heart of the town is the majestic Villa Ca' Zorzi, built by Antonio Ca' Zorzi, father of the poet Giacomo Noventa. The barchessa, the large Italian-style park with ancient trees and widely distributed spaces reflects the late 19th century culture, with the addition of Art Nouveau stylistic features.
In the city center stands the elegant Villa Lucatello, built in the heart of the nineteenth-century Villa Bortoluzzi, which was itself built on the ancient bulk of the sixteenth-century Palazzo Molin.
A little further on we find the majestic Villa Doria De Zuliani, a clear example of a 20th-century manor house with influences from the previous century, once belonging to the De Zuliani Porta di Ferro family.
Villa Bortoluzzi is located in the nearby village of Santa Teresina: its suburban location, far from the battlefront on the Piave, saved it from the fate of the other villas during the First World War. Built at the beginning of the 18th century by the Fonseca, a Spanish family that became part of the Venetian nobility, it later became property of the Bortoluzzi family. Today, from a historical-architectural point of view, it is the most valuable building in Noventa.
American writer Ernest Hemingway was closely linked to the charm of this natural environment: wounded in 1918 while doing voluntary service as an ambulance driver for Italian soldiers with the American Red Cross, he described the dramatic experience of the war, his memories, and the emotions he felt in the Piave area in his famous novels ""A Farewell to Arms"" and ""Across the River and Into the Trees"". In the pages of his stories, a keen attachment to the Veneto region emerges, to the point of defining himself as ''a boy of the Lower Piave Valley'': here he met people, discovered places, and savored tastes that shaped his life and inspired his literary production.
Nowadays it is still possible to walk through the areas of the Great War following Hemingway's footsteps on the Hemingway Path, a ring-route that winds for 11 km, starting from Noventa and crossing the peculiar pontoon bridge on the Piave river, leading to the nearby town of Fossalta di Piave, where a memorial stele has been placed on the spot he was injured in.
