The city is the birthplace of painterGiorgione,[3] whose house still exists; in a chapel of the city's cathedral, thePala di Castelfranco is displayed.
Thanks to its privileged position, it is served by a very varied and complete transport network: in fact, three important railway lines converge in the area, which intersect in thecity station and two important road arteries, theSS 53 Postumia which connectsVicenza toTreviso, and theSS 245 Castellana betweenMestre and Bassano del Grappa.
The main river is theMusone-Muson dei Sassi, but other smaller rivers flow in the territory of the municipality:l'Avenale,il Musoncello,il Musonello andil Muson Vecchio.
There are many fractions into which the city is divided. Castelfranco Veneto represents a commercial and industrial pole of great importance compared to the neighboring municipalities of the province of Treviso.
Castelfranco was founded between 1195 and 1199 when the recently formed Municipality ofTreviso felt the need to guard the border with rivalsPadua andVicenza, in an area where theMuson river represented the only ephemeral natural demarcation. The site chosen was placed in a strategic position: a pre-existing embankment on the eastern bank of the waterway, close to the confluence of the Postumia and Aurelia streets and in a central position between the lordly fortresses ofCastello di Godego and Treville and the episcopal fortresses of Salvatronda, Riese and Resana. The works were directed by CountSchenella di Collalto, who employed about five hundred master masons and a thousand "guastatori" (unskilled workers). In a decade the construction could be said to be complete: a moat was dug around the castle walls into which the waters of two tributaries (resurgence waters) of theMuson were diverted: theAvenale and theMusonello.
Once the castle was erected, the Municipality ofTreviso sent a colony of one hundred families of free men there, to whom farms and houses were granted exempt from taxes and encumbrances, hence the toponymCastelfranco: castle, precisely, "free" from taxes . This resulted in the peculiar composition of the castle population, the vast majority of which was not made up of soldiers, but of free citizens. The internal spaces, however, were not organized according to a typical urban plan: there was no real square and the most important buildings were distributed along the main road or even set back, as in the case of the church (at the time subordinate to the older Pieve Nuova, in the current Borgo Pieve), the accounting office and the infirmary.
Castelfranco Veneto was the birthplace of the painterGiorgione, and the cathedral, namedil Duomo (1723), located inside the walls, contains one of his finest works, theMadonna with St. Francis and Liberalis (1504), but more commonly calledPala del Giorgione. In the background, the towers of the old town may be seen.[4] The painting was being restored inVenice, Italy; however, ceremonies were held for the return of 'La Pala' near the end of 2005.
