Every design for Mira

Mira is a young comune made of old places: it was formed when Gambarare, Mira and Oriago were joined into one, and its town hall sits in the frazione of Mira Taglio rather than in any single centre. People have lived here since the Bronze Age, the Roman Via Annia crossed the southern edge, and the powerful abbey of Sant'Ilario flourished here in the Middle Ages.

What makes Mira unusual is the mix of water and villas. The Naviglio del Brenta runs through it, lined with the summer houses Venetian nobles built between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries: Villa Foscari, "la Malcontenta", designed by Andrea Palladio, Villa Widmann and Villa Valmarana among them. To the southeast the land dissolves into barene, tidal saltmarshes on the edge of the Venetian lagoon that make up a third of the municipality. Forte Poerio stands among the fields.

If you grew up here, this map holds the road along the Brenta, the villa gardens you cycled past on the way to school, and the flat silver line of the lagoon.