Villanova di Camposampiero

The roads of the Paduan centuriation still cross at right angles here and mark out squares of 710 metres a side: it is the oldest and most visible sign the Romans left. The village appears for the first time in 1109, when Matilda of Canossa gave back to the bishop of Ferrara some properties in the Paduan country; and in 1192 it turns up again in the will of the noblewoman Speronella Dalesmanini, who left a hundred soldi each to the parish church of San Prosdocimo and to the church of Murelle, and a plot along via Caltana to another church. In the fourteenth century the territory was divided into ville administered directly by the inhabitants, gathered in the vicinia, the assembly of heads of household led by a degan; the Carrarese register counts their hearths: twenty-four at Murelle, twenty-one at Caltana, twelve at Puotti, nine at Villanova and six at Pieve. The village that gives the comune its name was the fourth of five.

With Venice the land passed to the families of the lagoon. A land survey of 1686 lists among the owners the Badoer, the Cappello, the Contarini, the Dolfin, the Giustinian, the Morosini, the Bembo, the Michiel and the Venier; but the largest holdings were those of the Ruzzini, who lived in the villa that today serves as the town hall. To that house belonged Carlo Ruzzini, doge from 1732 to 1735. The second half of the name, on the other hand, is very recent: on 11 August 1867 the municipality added «di Camposampiero» to tell itself apart from the other Villanovas.