Having a very suggestive and famous name, the village “Lower Venice” (in Hungarian AlsoVenicze, in German Unter-Wenitze), is a picturesque village from southern Fagaras County, in Transylvania. Once you enter the road from Sercaia to Hoghiz you see in the near distance the spires from two different churches, that seem to float on the blue cloudless sky, and you know you have reached a village from ancient times. The village is crossed by a valley, with its river Venice which flows not far away in the Olt River.

    Țara Făgărașului - Fagaras County is considered the most beautiful and vast socio-politic entity of Transylvania, having the largest Romanian population. It is “Terra Blahorum de Fugras”, first attested in a document from 1222, placed in the middle of Romania and bordered by incredible Fagaras Mountains at one end and Olt River at the other end. This is the place where the roads of the history of Carpato-Danube lands meet.

Short Origin of the village name:

   The name of the village has been unchanged in time, at least since 1235. There are many theories referring to its name, and the links with the Italian venetians cannot be excluded.

1. Transilvania, having some of the most important salt mines in Europe, has become in time a main pawn in the salt trade. The transit of the merchandise was made on the so called “Salt Roads” of Transylvania, both on land and on water: from Mures River, but also the superior course of the Olt River up to the Danube. Venetians, having under their control the river Danube and its flow at the Black Sea, according to the treaty they had in 1082 with the Emperor of Byzant Alexios Comnem, would take with their ships the salt that came on river Olt all the way to the Danube and then Black Sea. It is highly probable that in their incursions on the Salt Roads, they would have founded a camp, near Olt River, giving it the name of their place of origin, or other people later on named the place by its first inhabitants. A possible argument to sustain this hypothesis is the archaeological discovery made in 1965 of a roman imperial coin from Tomis (actual port of Constanta) and dated from the centuries II – III A.C., that proves a route of trade in the area.
2. In year 1728, the Greco-catholic vicar Ionascu Monea, from Lower Venice, carves on a stone, written in Latin with Cyrillic letters, which he later on puts on the wall of his house, his genealogical tree that dates back to 1185, to a certain “Grigore the Venetian”, treasurer of legendary ruler Negru-Voda. It is possible that this Grigore, the Venetian, might have given the name of the village, because the inscription states he received from ruler Negru-Voda the lands on 4 valleys including the place where the village is now. His name does not necessarily mean he was venetian; it could also mean that he made commerce with the venetians or that he was schooled in Venice. The stone with the genealogical tree, dated 1728, carved with the coat of arms of Monea family and ordered most probably after he received the nobiliary title from King Carol the VI-th at 07.03.1718 to remain[1]“written in stone” over the edges, is at present at the “Valer Literat” Muzeum in the Fortress of Fagaras city.
3. A famous Romanian historian Nicolae Densusianu(1846-1911) stated in his research “Preistoric Dacia” that the village was founded by roman colonists established in Dacia, in the proximity of local inhabitants the “geti” and consideres that the Transylvanian Venice Țara Făgărașului - Fagaras CountyA famous Romanian historian Nicolae Densusianu (1846-1911) stated in his research “Preistoric Dacia” that the village was founded by roman colonists established in Dacia, in the proximity of local inhabitants the “geti” and consideres that the Transylvanian Venice might have the same origin of the Italian Venice. Even the Greek Historian Herodot states that in the proximity of “geti” lives a people called “veneti” or “vineti”.

4. Another theory about the name of the village was speculated by the Romanian lingvist Alexandru Graurwho stated that the name might come from the word “vineteala”, which in Romanian means “purple blue” and comes from a purple stone-dust that is added into the lime that is used to paint houses in the traditional blue color. However, it is un-likely to be so, because in Transylvania all the houses were painted traditional blue and yet no other village bears the same name.

Informations about the village:

   Transylvanian Venice was first attested in a document from year 1235 1235, when Papa Grigore al-IX lea orders a research to understand the problems between the Bishop of Transylvania and some priests from the south of Fagaras County. Among the priests mentioned there is also a priest named “Conrad of Venetiis”, thus the village is one with the oldest written attestation in Fagaras County.

   From the oldest times the village has been an important administrative, legal, economic, comercial, cultural centre, having even a small flourishing industry. Diligent people, the locals were engaged, besides agriculture, in preparing the small lime industry (there were over 30 lime ovens in the village), wood trade, production of tiles and bricks and also there was in the village a centre of manufacturing traditional shipskin coats.

   At the beginning of the XIX-th century the settlement had a status similar to a small town. We enumerate a few autorities that had their headquarters here, in Lower Venice[2]City Hall, Court, Pretura, Forest Department, Notary, Orthodox and Greek-Catholic churches, Greek-Catholic Protopopiat, the Orthodox School for first 4 grades, founded in 1858, which served in the beginning for 22 surrounding villages, the Greek-Catholic school founded in 1882, Venetian Bank (founded in the years 1900), Central Post Office with a telephone, Medical Cisrcumscripcy and Farmacy with nurses and mid-wives, Police Office, Kindergarden, Firestation with 2 pumps for putting out the fire, the only one in the whole region, Financial Administration, Shops, Fairs 3 times a year, Mill, Springs with mineral and balneo- waters where people could take terapheutic baths. Lower-Venice was a balnear spa resort with chloride-sodium-iodo-brominated waters and ferroginous mud. The baths dated from the beginning of years 1900 and were modernized in time, but were unfortunately distroyed by the communist party, as a punishement for the locals, because of the anti-communist movement that the villagers were taking part in.