Castelcucco

The name of this village means castle on the summit — in the medieval papers it is Castrocucco, and cucco is a pre-Latin word for a rounded rise — but the church, oddly, stands lower than the square. It is the opposite of what is done everywhere else, that is, putting sacred buildings at the highest point: from a distance only a piece of San Giorgio's bell tower can be seen. Inside there are frescoes, and the main one is of the patron killing the dragon; there is also one in which Saint Lucy gives her eyes to the Madonna. The territory, between Asolo, Monfumo and the slopes of the Grappa, has been frequented for a very long time: in 1958, at the quarries of the locality of Patt, triangular points and semicircular scrapers of the Palaeolithic came out, and in the same place the remains of a mammoth.

In 1874, where the town hall stands today, two Lombard tombs were found: inside was the small burial gear of a child, with a very rare little gold cross and some buckles of the seventh century. The patron himself, Saint George, was dear to that warrior people. Then the village organised itself into regole, divisions of territory with an autonomy of their own, each with its little church; in 1315 Castelcucco was taxed by Treviso to pay for the city walls, and from 1388 it passed to the Serenissima. The worst blow came with the earthquake of Santa Costanza in 1695, which threw down two houses out of three, damaged the church and partly brought down the bell tower: the presbytery was still half in ruins in 1753, when bishop Giustiniani, on a pastoral visit, nearly fell through the broken floorboards of the rooms. The comune, finally, has lost its autonomy twice, in 1806 and in 1928, ending up inside Asolo, and has taken it back in 1810 and in 1946.