There is a story that few know, that of the relationship between the Republic of Venice and its land possessions. It is above all the need to stock up on timber that pushed the Serenissima to expand inland in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. And it is the great challenge with the Ottoman Empire for supremacy over the Mediterranean that feeds this need. In the Venetian, Friulian and Istrian woods, Venice could in fact find the best wood, the essential raw material to build the warships it needed in view of a decisive battle with the Turks, which took place in 1571 in the famous Battle of Lepanto. To preserve its precious woods, Venice implements a series of good land management practices, also giving way to a profound change of mentality. Safeguarding the territory becomes a real watchword, with an approach that seems to approach our current environmental sensitivity. "The gold of Venice" is the story of this adventure and how those practices and that mentality have reached today.