The Piave that flows past Musile is not where nature put it: Venice put it there. Between 1641 and 1664 the Republic diverted the river to protect the lagoon from silting up, damming the old course as far as Caposile and digging a new bed from Musile towards Eraclea. For decades the territory had been reshaped with canals and embankments, and every work brought on another: in 1683, once the Taglio del Sile was opened, the waters of the Lanzoni canal could no longer drain into the lagoon, they spread over the fields, and the woods of the Malipiero and the Foscari turned to marsh. Much of the comune was wrested from the marsh only with the reclamation works of the late nineteenth century and of the nineteen-twenties.
The name comes from water and from a meadow: mussa, in old Venetian, is a dyke, an embankment, a palisade or a raised place, and in the Middle Ages musile also meant a meadow enclosed for pasture. Already in the tenth century an important market was held at Musile, probably in that very enclosed meadow by the river — and the same coincidence between the name and a market place is found at Belluno and at Treviso. The second part of the name, on the other hand, is a title: after Caporetto the village found itself on the Piave front and the fighting of June 1918 reduced it to a heap of rubble, and in 1920 Victor Emmanuel III granted it the right to add «di Piave» for having been at the centre of it.
No events match these filters.
📅 Every year, on 14 February; from 1995 to 2011 the Palio San Donato was also held, no longer active today
Musile di Piave celebrates its patrons, Saint Valentine and Saint Donatus of Arezzo, on 14 February. From 1995 to 2011, the Palio San Donato was held, with tug of war, an obstacle race and a sack race, among seven districts; it is no longer active today.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 Musile di Piave, but an easy day trip away.
