Conselve

The name comes from the wood: the first documents, of 954, call this place Caput Silvae, the head of the scrub, the point where the thicket began and evidently the most frequented spot in the area. What made the ground, though, was the Adige. Palaeohydrographic research has shown that one of the river's two main courses ran exactly beneath the present historic centre until the early Middle Ages, and the old town and the roads towards Cartura and San Pietro Viminario stand on the fluvial ridge that bed left behind. The lower land was marsh instead: the whole southern part of the comune, as far as Bagnoli di Sopra and Tribano, was occupied by a wide lake. Even today part of the territory lies below sea level, and pumping stations are needed to keep it from flooding.

The vine was brought here by the Benedictines, in the eleventh century, together with the reclamation of the land, and to that period the introduction of the Raboso del Piave is traced, the grape from which the Friularo is made today. Its real success, though, came in the fifteenth century, under Venice: as the Republic's commercial power in the Mediterranean and the Near East declined, the import of Greek wines fell away sharply and the local wines had their chance. The Friularo had a strong acidity in its favour, which let it keep through long sea voyages: for that reason they called it «vin da viajo», travelling wine. Today the Bagnoli Friularo is a DOCG grown in only fourteen comuni of the province of Padua, and the road that crosses that country is called the Stradon del Vin Friularo.