At Zianigo, a hamlet of Mirano, Giandomenico Tiepolo spent forty years frescoing the family villa with Pulcinella, satyrs and the Mondo Novo: those frescoes, today in Ca' Rezzonico, were born here, in the countryside Venetian painters chose for the summer. Mirano remains the capital of the Miranese villas, but it owes its historical role above all to water: in 1612 the Venetian Republic completed the Taglio Nuovo, a raised canal dug on purpose to link Mirano to Venice and Padua by river, an engineering feat that had to carry six watercourses beneath its own bed, through as many stone siphons, without ever letting them mix with its own waters. For centuries that canal made Mirano a river terminus, until the arrival of road transport.
Until the end of the nineteenth century the old centre was literally an island, ringed by a minor branch of the Muson that ran along the gardens of Villa Errera; to let the tram from Mestre arrive, that branch was filled in, and in its place rose the large oval square that Mirano's people still cross today among cafés and the neo-Gothic little castle. In the fight for liberation, between 1943 and 1945, fifteen partisans were shot or killed, and the main square, once dedicated to Victor Emmanuel II, still bears their name. Venice is twenty minutes away, but the pace here remains that of bicycles along the Muson.
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📅 Every year, on 29 September; the Grand Saint Matthew Fair is held on the Sunday following the third Monday of September
Mirano celebrates Saint Michael the Archangel on 29 September; the town is also known for the Saint Matthew Fair, authorised by the Senate of the Republic of Venice in 1477 and still among the area's most cherished events today.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Outside Mirano, but an easy day trip away.
