Cison di Valmarino is a village and ''

comune The (; plural: ) is a local administrative division of Italy, roughly equivalent to a township or municipality. It is the third-level administrative division of Italy, after regions ('' regioni'') and provinces ('' province''). The can ...

'' with 2,613 inhabitants in the

province of Treviso The Province of Treviso ('' it, Provincia di Treviso'') is a province in the Veneto region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Treviso. The province is surrounded by Belluno in the north, Vicenza in the west, Padua in southwest, Venice in the so ...

Veneto it, Veneto (man) it, Veneta (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = ...

, north-eastern

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

. It is a member of the

I Borghi più belli d'Italia I Borghi più belli d'Italia is an association of small Italian towns of historical interest, that was founded in March 2001 on the initiative of the Tourism Council of the , with the aim of preserving and maintaining villages of quality heri ...

("The most beautiful villages of Italy") association. The village was the seat of the county of Valmarino (also spelled Val-Marino), formerly encompassing 2 castles and 20 villages and from 1439 belonging to the family of the Brandolinis, the counts of Valmareno.

History

Prehistory

There is evidence that the area has been inhabited since prehistoric times from archaeological discoveries in Follina from the

Paleolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (), also called the Old Stone Age (from Greek: παλαιός '' palaios'', "old" and λίθος ''lithos'', "stone"), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone to ...

Mesolithic The Mesolithic (Greek: μέσος, ''mesos'' 'middle' + λίθος, ''lithos'' 'stone') or Middle Stone Age is the Old World archaeological period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic is often used synonymo ...

eras, to roof tiles and other fragments from the Bronze Age found in Valmareno. During the Roman period the

Via Claudia Augusta The Via Claudia Augusta is an ancient Roman road, which linked the valley of the Po River with Rhaetia (encompassing parts of modern Eastern Switzerland, Northern Italy, Western Austria, Southern Germany and all of Liechtenstein) across the Alps ...

a very important

Roman road Roman roads ( la, viae Romanae ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, and were built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman R ...

, which linked the valley of the

Po River The Po ( , ; la, Padus or ; Ancient Ligurian: or ) is the longest river in Italy. It flows eastward across northern Italy starting from the Cottian Alps. The river's length is either or , if the Maira, a right bank tributary, is included. Th ...

with

Rhaetia Raetia ( ; ; also spelled Rhaetia) was a province of the Roman Empire, named after the Rhaetian people. It bordered on the west with the country of the Helvetii, on the east with Noricum, on the north with Vindelicia, on the south-west with T ...

(modern Austria) across the

Alps The Alps () ; german: Alpen ; it, Alpi ; rm, Alps ; sl, Alpe . are the highest and most extensive mountain range system that lies entirely in Europe, stretching approximately across seven Alpine countries (from west to east): France, ...

, ran through this area. The area became an important defensive position against barbarian invasions during the European Migration Period, with the fortress of CastelBrando being expanded and refortified. The 15th-century Villa Casagrande is now the home of Contessa Ghislaine Brandolini d’Adda.

References

Cities and towns in Veneto Borghi più belli d'Italia {{Veneto-geo-stub