In the 1950s the Veneto region in the northeast of Italy, known for its capital Venice, was a poor, agricultural area. Nobody would have bet on the success that was to arrive with resounding impact. In just a few years farmhands became factory workers, unemployment disappeared and the economic boom powered the growth of the region’s economy at breakneck speed. Veneto became one of the richest regions in Europe. From the end of the 1970s, each year saw double-digit growth, spreading wellbeing and driving the expansion of the region’s businesses, which for the most part were family run firms. One of the symbols of this “economic fairy tale ” was and is the important waterway, the Brenta, which runs through the heart of the region and spans almost 200 km, a privileged view of the heart of Mediterranean Europe through religion, aspirations of regional independence, pollution and the silence of a region that is traditionally reserved in character but has always been dedicated to hard work.