Hotel Monaco & Grand Canal

Piazza San Marco, often known in English as St Mark's Square, is the principal public square of Venice, Italy, where it is generally known just as la Piazza. All other urban spaces in the city are called campi

A river overflowing with history, art and culture The republic of Venice in the course of its thousand year long history has left an enormous legacy. On the mainland the most striking example of Venetian heritage are the country villas, historic demesnes that are microcosms of families and communities, of the art patrimony, works of innumerable architects, painters and sculptors. Around the mid-sixteenth century, Venetian patricians chose to invest their vast wealth, accumulated from trade with the Orient, in establishing large agricultural estates under their direct control. The noble Venetians floatet up the quiet water of the Brenta river, setting out directly from their palaces on the Grand Canal. From the 18th century, the sojourn in the country villa, which normally coincided with the two main harvest periods (from mid-June to the end of July and the early October to mid-November) began to turn into a distinctive social occasions for the wealthy Venetian middle class, meanwhile bedecked with noble titles. The concentration of villas, with beside them the typical barchesse, or colonnaded grange, the stables, dovecote and far cottages, became so intense as to radically alter the landscape of the Riviera, that became almost a continuation of the Grand Canal, and formed that marvelous hydrographic, urban and monumental complex noted the world over as the Riviera del Brenta Today the splendid Venetian villas can be visited through tours in which are interwoven colors, music, nature, art and history. Discover with us the summer residences of the wealthy Venetians!