Anguillara Veneta
The earliest evidence of human settlements in the territory of Anguillara dates back to prehistoric times but there are also sporadic findings from the Roman era, such as a probable fragment of a funeral aedicule dating to around the 1st century AD that is walled on the left side of the church of the Capitello; while a pluteus depicting drinking peacocks found in the old church of Anguillara, which was demolished at the end of the last century for reasons of public safety, dates back to the Lombard period and is now kept in the National Museum of Atestino Este (PD).
Anguillara is mentioned for the first time, with its church dedicated to Sant’Andrea Apostolo, in a papal bull of 944.
The toponym is almost certainly related to the fishing of eels for which, as early as the 12th century, the existence of capture facilities in the river Adige is documented. In fact, the municipal coat of arms, which takes inspiration from ancient heraldic signs of the Carraresi, Counts of Anguillara and Lords of Padua, bears eels impaled with wagons.
The territory of Anguillara was, as mentioned before, the county of the Carraresi, who were the first first to build a fortified construction, equipped with ditches, shelters and a tower, which were repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt over the centuries, and whose remains – the ruins of the Castle of Borgoforte – are still visible in the bed of river Adige when the water is low.
In the 15th century the property of the Gastaldia of Anguillara passed into the hands of the “Veneranda Arca di Sant’Anthonio da Padova” (the Arc of Saint Anthony) as payment for the debts that the Carraresi had contracted with the Basilica del Santo (Padua’s Basilica during the wars. The “Arca del Santo” owned most of the land of Anguillara until very recently, taking care of it and building, over the centuries, its headquarters and numerous farmhouses here.
Under the subsequent rule of the Republic of Venice, important hydraulic works were started, including the Taglio del Gorzon and the construction of the homonymous channel that gave a start to the reclamation of the marshes, which was completed only at the end of the 19th century when steam pumping stations were implemented.
