Venice: The eye of the storm

Vignole Island, Venice Lagoon. The entire territory of Venice is a World Heritage Site, but there are overcrowded areas and others that risk abandonment. Historically, Le Vignole was an agricultural island, one of the Serenissima’s gardens. Today, even though it is very close to Piazza San Marco as the crow flies, it is almost deserted, with only 40 or 50 people.

We meet Luigi, one of the residents who continues to prefer this peace to the chaos of the city. We learn that he has also formed a non-profit organization with a group of residents in order to restart agriculture on the island and create concrete opportunities for people to continue living there: “VERAS” (standing for Vignole renewable energy healthy agriculture). The project is to create a public and sustainable agri-environmental park after the last flood in 2019 covered the island with 70 cm of brackish water and burned the fields.