Mestre is the most populated borough of the comune of Venice, in Veneto, Italy. Administratively, Mestre forms the Municipalità di Mestre-Carpenedo, one of the six boroughs of the comune of Venice. Sometimes it is considered as a frazione. With 88,552 inhabitants, Mestre is the most populated urban centre of the comune. The population of the borough of Mestre-Carpenedo is 89,373.
Overview
The mainland of Venice is the territory of on the mainland coast of the Lagoon of Venice. It is connected to Venice by a 3,850 m long railway and road bridge over the lagoon called Ponte della Libertà. After World War II, Mestre had a fast and disorganized period of urban growth and became a large urban area together with the other urban centers on the Venetian mainland. Since Mestre is the hub and the most populated area of the mainland, in common parlance its toponym is very often used, incorrectly, to indicate the whole Venetian mainland. Mestre became a comune in 1806 and remained so util 1926, when was incorporated into the comune of Venice.
Population
Mestre has around 88,552 inhabitants while the Municipalità di Mestre-Carpenedo has 89,373 inhabitants. The whole Venetian mainland has around 181,000 inhabitants. In contrast, there are just around 53,000 inhabitants in Venice and just around 27,700 in the other major islands of the lagoon, which makes a total of around 80,700 inhabitants based on islands.
According to legend, Mestre was founded by Mesthles, a companion of the hero Antenor, a fugitive from Troy, who founded Padua. The true origins of the town are uncertain, although it is known that a Roman oppidum existed here. The settlement was destroyed by Attila and was probably rebuilt in the 10th century. The first historical attestation of Mestre is in the charter of the Holy Roman Emperor Otto III, in which Rambald, the count of Treviso, received land in an area named Mestre. In 1152 a papal bull by Pope Eugene III recognized the bishop of Treviso as lord of Mestre and mentioned the existence of the church of St. Lawrence, a castle and a port. In 1257 the bishop granted Mestre to Alberico da Romano, the podestà of Treviso. In 1274 a fire destroyed the castle, and Mestre's inhabitants fortified the town with a palisade, which became Castelnuovo. No traces of this castle remain today. In 1323 the Scaligeri family from Verona conquered Treviso and thus acquired Mestre. The Venetians, fearing the excessive Verona's power in the mainland, conquered Mestre on September 29, 1337. They replaced the old fortification with a brick wall with eight towers and a moat. The port of Mestre benefited from the economic power of the Republic of Venice, forming Venice's main connection with the mainland. A canal was built to facilitate the transport of goods. The Venetian domination of Mestre ended on July 16, 1797 with the occupation of the Republic of Venice by Napoleon. In 1806 Mestre, following the French model, constituted itself into a free municipality. It remained so under the subsequent period of Austrian rule and under the Kingdom of Italy. In 1923 it was given the status of town. Three years later a Royal Decree incorporated Mestre and some other neighbouring townships to the comune of Venice. Since then there have been attempts to regain autonomy in four referenda in 1979, 1989, 1994 and 2003, but in each instance the proposal for separating Mestre from Venice was rejected. Another such referendum, which was proposed by the president of the Veneto region, took place on December 1, 2019. Even though 66% of the voters voted for the separation only the 21% of the population voted, thus making the referendum not valid. In the 1960s and 1970s Mestre experienced a population boom, fuelled mainly by the construction of a large industrial zone in nearby Marghera.
Tourism
Mestre is now a favourite starting point for tourists visiting Venice on a budget due to its convenient location, its cheap and frequent connections to Venice by train and by bus, and the more reasonable prices of its bars, discos, car parking, hotels, restaurants, and supermarkets compared to the prices of the same tourist services in Venice. In 1979 Mestre provided one of the venues for the European basketball championship EuroBasket 1979. This drew many tourists to the town. The other venues were in Siena, Gorizia and Turin.
's third Commissario Guido Brunetti mystery novel, The Anonymous Venetian, aka Dressed for Death, starts with a battered body found behind a slaughterhouse near Marghera — just inside the border of Mestre. The staff of the local inspector is considered inadequate, so Brunetti is assigned to lead the investigation of the Mestre police. In 2019, Italian-German singer Marco di Colonia released an album completely dedicated to the life and the people of Mestre.
