Cadore

[2] Once an undeveloped and poor district, the former contado (countship) of Cadore now has a thriving economy based on tourism and a small manufacturing industry, specialising in the production of glasses.

The painter's birthplace in Pieve di Cadore, in a locality named Arsenale between the castle and the village Sotto Castello, is open to visitors.

Originally populated by people who spoke Proto-Italic, Euganei and then by the Celtic Gauls, the area now known as Cadore was later conquered by the Romans during the second century BC and became part of the Regio X Venetia et Histria.

When the Republic of Venice conquered the neighbouring Friuli region in 1420 and put an end to the temporal power of the Patriarchs, the rulers of Cadore were forced to choose between aligning with Venetia or the Imperial.

Napoleon I Bonaparte created a duché grand-fief, a rare, hereditary but nominal honor of ducal rank (extinguished in 1893) for his minister and admiral Jean-Baptiste Nompère de Champagny.