The Patron
San Martino
Martino di Tours is Belluno's patron, celebrated on 11 November. The Duomo stands with the Venetian Palazzo dei Rettori on the city's principal square.
— Castellesi
CASTELLESI COMUNE
Belluno,
Veneto
A Dolomite city whose archive now holds the record of the Vajont disaster.
On the night of 9 October 1963 a landslide fell into the Vajont reservoir and the wave that followed destroyed Longarone and neighbouring villages. The criminal trial file for that disaster has, after fifteen years of work , been digitised and published online .
It was acquired by the Archivio di Stato dell'Aquila on 17 March 2008 , ahead of the normal deposit schedule, to secure its conservation; the inventory was published in 2013 . By directorial decree of 12 August 2024 the file was assigned definitively to the Archivio di Stato di Belluno , with a complete digital copy kept at L'Aquila — to bring it home, in the ministry's words, and honour the memory of the victims.
For families from Longarone, Erto, Casso and the Piave valley, it is the record of what happened to them.
The Archive
The Vajont trial
The Vajont criminal trial record was transferred definitively to Belluno in 2024, with a full digital copy retained at L'Aquila. It documents the disaster that destroyed Longarone and neighbouring communities.
The Landmark
Duomo di Belluno
The Duomo di Belluno stands in Piazza del Duomo beside the Venetian governors' palace. For nineteenth-century families, parish archives remain central between the Napoleonic and Italian civil systems.
Did you know?
THE RECORD OF VAJONT HAS RETURNED TO BELLUNO
A catastrophe documented in a complete criminal trial
After preservation and digitisation at L'Aquila, the Vajont trial file was assigned to Belluno in 2024. For families of Longarone, Erto, Casso and the Piave valley, it is the primary documentary record of 1963.
LA PARLATA
How they speak
The local speech is Bellunese, an Alpine Venetian variety, with Ladin spoken in the upper Cordevole and Comelico valleys.
Follow the valley and the catastrophe
Belluno is the Dolomite province — Cadore , Agordino , Zoldano , Comelico , the Val Belluna — and its history is one of timber, mountains and departure.
For centuries its wealth came down the Piave . The zàttere — timber rafts — carried Dolomite wood to Venice for the Arsenal and the city's building; the raftsmen, the zattieri , had their own confraternity with a statute, and the fraglia dei Zatèr di San Nicolò at Belluno is documented in the local historical literature. Whole valleys lived by supplying Venetian shipbuilding.
Under Napoleon the territory became the Dipartimento della Piave . By decree of 27 March 1806, no. 27 , made executive by the decree of 24 April following, civil-status offices were activated in the comuni of the department — as in all the Veneto comuni of the Kingdom of Italy — for the registration of births, deaths and marriage publications : tasks, as the archive notes, which had never previously belonged to the civil authority .
The Archivio di Stato di Belluno was instituted only on 1 December 1973 , under the rule requiring a State Archive in every provincial capital. It occupies one of the finest palaces in the centre — for centuries the seat of the Scuola , the lay confraternity, of the Flagellants of Santa Maria dei Battuti , beside the church of the same name.
Its holdings were assembled from elsewhere : substantial transfers came from the State Archives of Trento, Treviso and Venice . The first deposits of the Distretto militare followed in 1978 , then the Prefettura , then in the 1990s a great mass of further material — including, in 1994 , the acts of the notaries of Belluno and province drawn from the fifteenth century to the Napoleonic age . In 2002 the documentary patrimony of several important suppressed religious corporations of the Bellunese arrived, likewise from Venice.
Private archives acquired by gift include the noble family archives of the Miari and the Doglioni , and that of the Banca Bellunese Prosdocimi .
Postcards from Belluno
Wear Belluno
WANT TO SEE BELLUNO REPRESENTED?
Castellesi hasn't made anything for this place yet. Requests are how we decide which comuni come next — every one is read, and the places people ask for are the places that get made.
REQUEST BELLUNO →Where this
belongs
belongs
PROVINCIA DI BELLUNO
Discover the beauty, culture and traditions of Belluno and its remarkable comuni.
REGIONE VENETO
From the mountains to the sea, Veneto is a region of history, flavor and soul.
EXPLORE VENETO →From the passenger index
At least 719 people who gave Belluno as their home are recorded by name among Italian arrivals in the United States — each with the ship they sailed on and the day they landed.
A floor, not a total. The index covers arrivals through 1912, holds nothing between May 1907 and December 1911, and many passengers were written down with no home town at all. Where a name is there, it is there with its record.
Have Orso look for your family →Ready to visit
A Venetian palace under the Dolomites
Getting there
The nearest major airport is Venice Marco Polo, Treviso, or Verona Airport, depending on the destination.
Belluno sits above the Piave with the Dolomites filling the northern horizon.
Start in Piazza del Duomo at the Palazzo dei Rettori , the Venetian governors' residence of the 1490s, and the Duomo attributed to Tullio Lombardo. The Archivio di Stato occupies the old seat of the confraternity of Santa Maria dei Battuti nearby.
Walk down to the Piave , and think about the zàttere — the timber rafts that carried Dolomite wood to Venice for centuries, floated by raftsmen with their own confraternity and statute.
Then go north. Longarone , rebuilt after the wave of 9 October 1963 , keeps the memory of the Vajont disaster whose trial file is now held and digitised at Belluno. The dam itself still stands above the valley.
Beyond lie the Cadore , Agordino and Comelico — the valleys that emptied into Germany, Brazil and beyond, and from which the gelatieri still leave each spring.
The Parco Nazionale delle Dolomiti Bellunesi and the UNESCO Dolomites cover most of the province.
Family history
Where the records are
Archives and registers
Belluno holds the digitised Vajont trial file and notarial acts from the fifteenth century - but its civil status runs only 1806-1815, then parishes to 1870.
Archivio di Stato di Belluno on Antenati
States that the archive holds the Napoleonic civil status of 1806-1815 for those born in some comuni of the seven cantons of the Dipartimento della Piave - Belluno, Longarone, Agordo, Feltre, Fonzaso, Pieve di Cadore and Campedello - that the series is sufficiently complete except for the canton of Feltre, that research for 1815-1870 must be conducted in the parish archives and from 1871 in the archives of the comuni of the old department which does not entirely correspond to the present province, and that the Ufficio provinciale di leva holds classes 1900-1949 including the renitenti alla leva.
antenati.cultura.gov.itArchivio di Stato di Belluno - il patrimonio
Records the institution of the archive on 1 December 1973 in the former seat of the lay confraternity of the Flagellants of Santa Maria dei Battuti, the private archives of the Miari and Doglioni families and the Banca Bellunese Prosdocimi, and the temporary deposit from 2010 of the Vajont criminal trial archive, now entirely digitised and consultable online, with a note that booking is required to consult the digitised fonds.
cultura.gov.itArchivio di Stato di Belluno - il fascicolo del Vajont
Records that after fifteen years of work the Vajont trial file is consultable online on the Archivio digitale platform, that it was acquired by the Archivio di Stato dell'Aquila on 17 March 2008 ahead of the deposit schedule, that the inventory by Giovanna Lippi and Daniela Nardecchia was published in 2013 in Il grande Vajont, and that by directorial decree no. 840 of 12 August 2024 the fond was assigned definitively to Belluno with a complete digital copy retained at L'Aquila.
archiviodistatobelluno.beniculturali.itArchivio di Stato di Belluno - Wikipedia
Records the transfers of fonds from the State Archives of Trento, Treviso and Venice, the first deposits of the Distretto militare acts in 1978 followed by the Prefettura, the arrival in 1994 of the acts of the notaries of Belluno and province drawn from the fifteenth century to the Napoleonic age, and the addition in 2002 of the records of suppressed religious corporations of the Bellunese from Venice.
it.wikipedia.orgSIAS - Archivio di Stato di Belluno
Records that by decree of 27 March 1806 no. 27, made executive by that of 24 April, civil-status offices were activated in the comuni of the Dipartimento della Piave for the registration of births, deaths and marriage publications, functions that had never previously belonged to the civil authority, and cites published studies on trades and professions in the Agordino in the Napoleonic period and on literacy among socio-professional groups in the Bellunese.
sias-archivi.cultura.gov.itRelated places
Keep exploring
The journey does not end at the boundary of one comune. The province, the region and the neighbouring towns often hold the rest of the picture.
Your Roots. Their Story. Your Place.
Belluno is more than a place on a map. It is a part of you.
FIND YOUR COMUNE →