The Lower Piave Lands

In this valley, time seems to have stood still and daily life enjoys a lazy rhythm. All over the place we find ancient small harbours and wooden mooring piers, like the so-called Tajo in Musile di Piave or the 1920s bridge in Caposile – one of the only two remaining outrigger bridges to connect the banks of the Piave. These are the lands where Ernest Hemingway, who called himself a “boy of the Lower Piave”, volunteered for the American Red Cross during the war, an experience that left him with 227 shrapnel fragments in his body and inspired the novel A Farewell to Arms (1929). 

 Dedicated to him are the foundation stone of the Baptistery of the Boys of ’99 (the birth year of the youths who enlisted in the army) and the Hemingway Itinerary in Fossalta di Piave. Immersed in a refreshing silence, this 11-km pedestrian and cycle loop along the riverbed is indescribably beautiful. 

 To describe these feelings, we can turn to the words of the other writers and poets for whom these places represented a sort of opportunity as well as an inspiration. Indeed, the Piave River (called “il Piave” or “la Piave” in Italian, because the local dialect uses the feminine), which flows for 220 km from Mount Peralba to the Adriatic Sea, is the birthplace of the artist Titian and author Dino Buzzati (from Belluno). Its waters also offered refuge to the poet Andrea Zanzotto and writer Mauro Corona. The Piave River was written about by the authors Giovanni Comisso and Goffredo Parise (a native of Vicenza) who, after travelling the world, decided to put down roots on the banks of the Piave, in Salgareda. He purchased a “relitto di casa” (“a house in ruins”), a sort of barn “in quel piccolo Eden profumato di sambuco” (“in that tiny, elder-scented Eden”). His so-called little pink house is open to visitors today as is his house museum in Ponte di Piave.

Another native of Noventa is Giacomo Noventa (pseudonym of Giacomo Ca’ Zorzi). Born there in 1898, this philosopher, politician and, above all, poet, owned the beautiful, Palladio-inspired Villa Ca’ Zorzi, which is still owned privately.