Treviso historical timeline

Origins

Tarvisium was a Roman municipium on the road north from the Adriatic, of moderate size. It survived the end of the empire better than most towns in the region and was briefly a Lombard and then a Carolingian centre.

Turning points

Treviso was an independent commune through the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, wealthy enough to be worth fighting over and not strong enough to stay independent. It passed to Venice in 1339 -- the first city the Republic took on the mainland, and the beginning of the Stato da Tera that eventually reached almost to Milan.

Influential people

Tomaso da Modena worked here in the 1350s and left the frescoes that are the city's real artistic distinction, above all the forty Dominican scholars in the Seminary chapter house. Titian painted an Annunciation for the Duomo's Malchiostro Chapel around 1520.

Cultural evolution

Venice fortified Treviso seriously after the League of Cambrai nearly destroyed the Republic in 1509. Fra Giocondo built the bastioned walls and the moat between 1509 and 1518, and they still define the shape of the city.

Present-day significance

On 7 April 1944 -- Good Friday -- Allied bombing aimed at the rail junction destroyed a large part of the historic centre in under ten minutes and killed around a thousand people. What stands today is heavily rebuilt, carefully and in period, which is why the joins are hard to see. Post-war Treviso became prosperous on light manufacturing; Benetton was founded here in 1965.