Massanzago

A Roman boundary can still be seen here. The Muson Vecchio marked the limit between the centuriation of Padua and that of Altino, and to this day the roads, the fields and the ditches run at a different angle north and south of its course: you need only look at a map. That river is the wavy band on the municipal coat of arms, and the green in the shield recalls the colonists settled in the hamlet of Zeminiana, veterans of Augustus placed here after the battle of Actium. The town's name is Roman too: it comes from a landowner, one Massentius. The old parish church is dedicated to Saint Alexander, a patron who suggests soldiers or veterans, and the first written mention of the name bears the date 29 April 1085.

Two things here have lasted longer than expected. The bishop of Treviso held Massanzago as a fief carrying the right to collect the tithes: the first man invested with it was Semenzin, son of Adalgentino Semenza, in 1270, and the fief was abolished only in 1865. And the church everyone uses is not the parish church: San Pio X, begun in 1956 and finished in 1972, is the town's main place of worship, but canon law allows a church's title to pass to another only if the first is demolished or deconsecrated. So the title has stayed with old Sant'Alessandro, and the new church could not even be dedicated to the town's patron saint.