They were one of the three subdivisions of the Republic's possessions, the other two being the original Dogado (Duchy) and the Stato da Màr (maritime territories).

The development of the Terraferma province actually began with the accession of Doge Michele Steno in 1400, who systematically campaigned in the Venetian hinterland in order to secure trade and sustenance for the citizens of Venice.

In 1420, Venice annexed the Friulian territories of the Imperial Patriarchate of Aquileia from the Adriatic coast up to Pontebba in the Julian Alps.

Emperor Sigismund had to acknowledge the acquisition in 1433; four years later he officially ceded the territory to Venice as an Imperial fief.

On the fall of the Republic and the Treaty of Campo Formio, the Domini spent a short while under French rule until Napoleon ceded it to Austria in 1797, and in 1805 the former Domini were united with the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy (1805–14), and in 1815 with what was left of Lombardy to make the Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia under the control of the Austrian Empire.