I want to take a day train from Paris to Venice and the only option that I've been able to find has a train change in Milano, with only 15 minutes between arrival of train #1 and the departure of train #2. Is this even possible to do or just too short of a time frame for the transfer? Or does anyone have a suggestion for a different train route from Paris to Venice that I may not have been able to pull up online? And yes, I know it's a very long train, but I want to have one train day so that I can relax a bit, catch up on my travel journal, etc. I do not want to fly from Paris to Venice and I really prefer not to take a night train (which can be done without a connection). Any suggestions? Has anyone made this same trip via train with only 15 minutes to transfer?

I don't think you have to take that Milano-Venezia train. The ES trains leaves about every 30min to Venezia. Are you taking the last fast train of the day? I presume you are looking at ES9729 leaving Milano Centrales 15:05? The next ones are 16:05 then 16:35, 17:05, 17:35, etc...

Suppose you miss then train, then what? I don't recall all the intricacies of the types of refunds and exchanges. But the worst case is buying Milano-Venezia ticket again at €30.50. Is this the end of the world?

Thanks for the info - my mistake was in looking up the trip as Paris to Venice, during which there is only one connecting option given. Now that I look them up separately I do see several different options. Thanks again!

I would consider flying as it would be faster and probably cheaper. Easyjet flies Paris Orly to VCE.
http://www.easyjet.com/asp/en/book/index.asp

I've changed trains in Milan (Venice to Varenna) with only 10 minutes between trains and I had time to spare. I think you'll be OK.