Sarmede

They call Sarmede the village of fairy tales, and the credit goes to one man: Štěpán Zavřel, a Czechoslovak painter, who had the idea of an annual exhibition gathering the children's illustrations made by artists from all over the world. The thing started in 1983, with the help of the Pro Loco volunteers, and it turned the streets and squares of the village into an illustrated place: the International Exhibition of Illustration for Childhood is held every year from November to February, and the recent editions have shown over two hundred works by twenty illustrators come from different countries. In autumn, for two Sundays in October, there are instead the Fiere del Teatro, with street artists, fire-eaters, puppeteers and acrobats.

The other thing Sarmede is known for happened in the hamlet of Montaner, and it is a rare story: the parish community set itself against its own bishop and did not give in, and the conflict went on until a part of the community founded an Orthodox church. That bishop was Albino Luciani, who would later become pope John Paul the First. Montaner, for that matter, has a habit of going first: it was there that, during the Second World War, the first partisan formation of this territory was born, the one that would become the Gruppo Brigate Vittorio Veneto. As for the comune's name, it is thought to go back to the age of the barbarian invasions and to be linked to the Sarmatians, since the place lies on a route of passage. In the Middle Ages it belonged to the counts da Montanara, who had their castle near today's Montaner and who would later be known as the da Camino; they held the fief until 1337, when the Serenissima arrived. The archpriest church of Sant'Antonio, finally, has a plain gabled front and no bell tower at all.