A new Monopoly-like board game analyzes critical issues in Venice's future

On May 13 at 5:30 p.m., the Beato Pellegrino Polo of theUniversity of Padua will host, as part of the Festival of Sustainable Development 2026, the presentation of an innovative tool for territorial thinking called Venice to Save. It is a board game born from the collaboration between the European ERC research group VeNiss and the DARWIN Laboratory of the University of Florence. The work is explicitly inspired by the structure of Monopoly, but radically shifts its setting and purpose to the dimension of the lagoon archipelago, with the aim of analyzing the current state and potential evolutions of the Venetian context.

The event will include talks by Ludovica Galeazzo, Martina Massaro and Federico Panarotto, afferent to the Department of Cultural Heritage of the University of Padua, who will illustrate the research project Venice’s Nissology. The academic investigation proposes a new framing of the water city as a complex system of islands, analyzing its internal dynamics and relationship with the surrounding ecosystem. Enriching the discussion is Gianlorenzo Dellabartola of the DIDA in Florence, who elaborates on the methodological shift from historical cartography to game design, explaining how cartographic data have been translated into playful elements to encourage the rediscovery of the lagoon’s smaller islands.

At the end of the theoretical presentations, the program will include a practical demonstration with direct game sessions aimed at testing the effectiveness of the proposed model. The initiative represents an attempt to combine scientific popularization with strategic planning and environmental awareness through unconventional educational methodologies.

A new Monopoly-like board game analyzes critical issues in Venice's future

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