It is a comune with three heads and no centre. Ponzano Veneto was born in 1807 from the union of three separate villages — Ponzano, Paderno and Merlengo — and ever since it has borne the name of the first while the town hall stands in the second; the present name arrived in 1868. The place names tell who got here first: Pontianus and Paternus were the Roman settlers who were given land to farm here, while Merlengo comes from Marling, which is of Germanic origin. The territory was crossed by the via Postumia, the consular road that ran from Genoa to Aquileia, and the first document naming the place dates from 1077: the sale of a property by Ecelo I, founder of the Ezzelini line.
In the villas scattered among the three hamlets there are remarkable things: villa Corner keeps frescoes by Giovan Battista Tiepolo, the church of Merlengo works by his son Giandomenico and two marble heads of Jesus and Mary attributed to Giuseppe Bernardi-Torretti, the master of Antonio Canova, and villa Minelli houses the offices of Benetton, which has its headquarters here. The village festival, though, looks the other way: it is called the Palio dei Mezzadri, the sharecroppers' palio, it is held at Paderno on the second weekend of September, and it sets eight contrade against one another in seven trials that come from work in the fields — treading the grapes, the plait, the tug of war, the slingshot, the cart race.
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📅 Every year, on 7 August; in September, at Paderno, the Palio dei Mezzadri among eight districts, since 1990
Ponzano Veneto celebrates Saint Cajetan of Thiene on 7 August. The second weekend of September, in the church square of Paderno, the traditional Palio dei Mezzadri is held, born in 1990, featuring games and challenges among the town's eight districts.
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Outside Ponzano Veneto, but an easy day trip away.
