In 1339 Mussolente, along with the rest of the Trevisan territory, came under the dominion of the Republic of Venice. The town prospered under Venetian rule. The flatlands were cleared and returned to agricultural use with a village established in what is now the frazione Casoni di Mussolente. In the 1580s, several inhabitants of Mussolente were accused of Lutheran heresy and brought before the Inquisition in Belluno. Lorenzo Busnardo (1532–1598), described in the Inquisition documents as a "vagabond priest" from Mussolente, was accused of using chess games to lure people into seditious religious conversations. Busnardo (twice cleared of the charges) was one of the first Italian chess players to play at international level and to have his games published. With the fall of the Venetian Republic and the takeover of northern Italy by the Austrian Empire, Mussolente again went into a period of decline marked by poverty and significant emigration which continued through the first decades of the Kingdom of Italy.