Nanto
Nanto is a municipality of the Colli Berici, south of Vicenza, known above all for the stone that bears its name: Pietra di Nanto,...
Updated 12 July 2026
The story
The story of Nanto
A municipality born from the stone of the Colli Berici
Nanto lies on the southern slope of the Colli Berici, the hilly area south of Vicenza shaped by ancient seabeds that over millennia left behind limestone formations rich in fossils and beds of soft stone. The municipal territory, partly shared with neighbouring Grancona in terms of quarrying, has built around this natural resource not only its economy but also its landscape, dotted with open-air quarries and entrances to underground galleries dug over the centuries. The small village centre, gathered around the parish church, keeps a simple layout typical of Veneto hill villages, with houses scattered among the vineyards climbing the first slopes of the Berici.
Pietra di Nanto and its link to Palladio
Pietra di Nanto is a soft limestone, ranging in colour from sand-yellow to ochre, known and used since antiquity for its ease of working and the beauty of its colour. It was Andrea Palladio, in the sixteenth century, who became a deep connoisseur of it, studying and using it in his architecture for bases, capitals, architraves, friezes and staircases: a link that makes Nanto an integral, if less celebrated, part of the history of Palladian architecture and of the wider stone trail of Vicenza that runs through the Colli Berici.
Quarries, galleries and craft tradition
Stone extraction in Nanto has continued for centuries, giving rise to a system of open-air quarries and underground galleries that still characterise the subsoil of the municipal territory today. Some historic firms keep the stoneworking tradition alive, passing down craft skills that combine cutting, sculpture and restoration, still supplying building sites and restoration projects across the Veneto today. It is a heritage of technical knowledge more than a tourist attraction in the strict sense, but it represents the village's most authentic productive soul.
Karst caves and the Berici landscape
Beyond the stone quarries, Nanto's territory holds small natural karst caves, typical of the limestone geology of the Colli Berici, formed by water erosion over millennia. The surrounding hilly landscape, covered with coppiced woods and terraced crops, offers quiet vantage points over the Vicenza countryside, in a natural setting still relatively unexplored compared with other better-known areas of the Berici, such as around Lonigo or Barbarano Vicentino. Walking among these hills means discovering a karst landscape in miniature, where sinkholes, rocky outcrops and small cavities alternate seamlessly with the cultivated rows of vines.
Vineyards and wine on the hill slopes
Alongside stone, Nanto shares with the Colli Berici a wine-growing vocation too, with vineyards occupying the best-exposed slopes of the municipal territory and contributing to the Colli Berici DOC denomination. Production, largely family-run, combines native and international varieties, and some local wineries offer direct tastings, allowing visitors to round off a visit to Nanto with a concrete taste of the territory, between stone and vine. The limestone soil, the same from which the stone is quarried, gives the local wines mineral characteristics that many producers consider a distinctive signature of the southern Berici.
Experiences not to miss
- Discover the Nanto stone quarries and their link to Andrea Palladio
- Explore the underground galleries and tunnels dug into the soft stone
- Visit the small karst caves of the Colli Berici
- Walk among vineyards and coppiced woods on the hill slopes
- Taste Colli Berici denomination wines at a local winery
Routes · Trovido Route
