ItalianoIT

Keep a little mystery in your trip planning: flip this switch on and Explorer Picture Mode shows a stylized version of every place instead of the real photo, so you can go by the description and reviews first and picture it your own way -- turn it off again any time, or reveal the real photo for just one place at a time from its own page.

Create a free account to pick your own style (Vintage, Oil Painting, Illustration, and more) and have it remembered next time you visit.

World Europe Italy Veneto Feltre Learn

Feltre

Learn about Feltre

A concise introduction to Feltre, its geography, history and culture.

Introduction

Changed

Feltre is a walled hill town in the Valbelluna, below the Vette Feltrine and the western edge of the Dolomiti Bellunesi. Its old centre sits on a ridge above the modern town, reached by a climb, and is almost entirely of one date.

That is because it was destroyed. In 1510, during the War of the League of Cambrai, troops of the Emperor Maximilian I burned Feltre to the ground; Venice paid for the rebuilding, and the arcaded streets and frescoed facades of Via Mezzaterra all date from the decades after.

The frescoes are the reason it is called a painted city. Enough survives on the house fronts of the upper town to show what a sixteenth-century Venetian hill town actually looked like.

Geography

Changed

Feltre sits at about 325 metres on a ridge in the Valbelluna, west of the Piave, with the Vette Feltrine rising sharply to the north. The old town is on the ridge; the modern one spread onto the flat ground below it.

Read the full Geography guide →

History

Changed

Roman Feltria, later a bishopric, Feltre submitted to Venice in 1404. In 1510 imperial troops burned it to the ground during the War of the League of Cambrai; the Republic paid to rebuild it, which is why the upper town is almost all of one date.

Read the full History guide →

Culture

Changed

Feltre's culture is a painted town, a national park and a fifteenth-century schoolmaster. Its frescoed facades, its position as the gateway to the Vette Feltrine, and Vittorino da Feltre's ideas about how children should be taught are the three things it is genuinely known for.

Read the full Culture guide →

How It Was Built

Changed

The upper town is a single sixteenth-century rebuilding: arcaded streets of pale stone climbing the ridge, with painted rather than carved facades, because paint was what a burned-out merchant town could afford.

Read the full How It Was Built guide →

Climate Patterns

Changed

Feltre has an alpine-influenced climate with cold winters, mild summers and high rainfall. The valley floor is a good deal warmer than the Vette Feltrine directly above, which hold snow into early summer.

Read the full Climate Patterns guide →

← Back to Feltre overview