Description
The Island of Torcello is a silent island in the northern lagoon, just north of Burano, where a handful of people live today and two Byzantine churches remain: a mosaic of the Last Judgment and the air of a vanished city. Before Venice became Venice, one of the most important cities of the lagoon stood here.
Inhabited already in Roman times, the island flourished again in the 7th century, when the Byzantines made it an outpost against the Lombards. According to a disputed inscription, the cathedral was founded in 639, and the bishop of Altino moved his seat here.
Torcello had a bishop, a nobility and two governing councils, a greater and a lesser. For centuries, until the 1300s, it was the main wool-working center of the Duchy of Venice. With the neighboring islands it was the bridgehead of Venetian trade toward the Adriatic. As early as the 7th century it also had a glass workshop.
From the 1400s came the marshes, the unhealthy air and the plagues. The buildings fell into ruin, and Venetians and Murano people came to carry off the marble: in 1429 Doge Foscari had to order them to stop. In 1822 the population had dropped to eighty people, “all winegrowers”.
The basilica of Santa Maria Assunta was rebuilt into its present form around the year 1000. It has large windows with shutters of stone slabs, and inside, on the entrance wall, an enormous Byzantine mosaic of the Last Judgment, with a Madonna in prayer at the base.
Next to it is Santa Fosca, from the 12th century: a Greek-cross plan, very rare, and a portico with marble columns. Greek-cross churches bear witness to the Byzantine cultural dominance that Venice underwent between the 9th and 12th centuries.
On the open ground in front of the two churches, beside the palace of the Podestà, which houses the museum, is the so-called Attila's throne, more probably the magistrates' seat. The Devil's Bridge, over an inner canal, has no parapets, as all Venetian bridges once did not.
The parish was suppressed in 1986, because the inhabitants had become too few. Torcello can be reached by boat from Burano, and its churches are still the heart of the island.
Inhabited already in Roman times, the island flourished again in the 7th century, when the Byzantines made it an outpost against the Lombards. According to a disputed inscription, the cathedral was founded in 639, and the bishop of Altino moved his seat here.
Torcello had a bishop, a nobility and two governing councils, a greater and a lesser. For centuries, until the 1300s, it was the main wool-working center of the Duchy of Venice. With the neighboring islands it was the bridgehead of Venetian trade toward the Adriatic. As early as the 7th century it also had a glass workshop.
From the 1400s came the marshes, the unhealthy air and the plagues. The buildings fell into ruin, and Venetians and Murano people came to carry off the marble: in 1429 Doge Foscari had to order them to stop. In 1822 the population had dropped to eighty people, “all winegrowers”.
The basilica of Santa Maria Assunta was rebuilt into its present form around the year 1000. It has large windows with shutters of stone slabs, and inside, on the entrance wall, an enormous Byzantine mosaic of the Last Judgment, with a Madonna in prayer at the base.
Next to it is Santa Fosca, from the 12th century: a Greek-cross plan, very rare, and a portico with marble columns. Greek-cross churches bear witness to the Byzantine cultural dominance that Venice underwent between the 9th and 12th centuries.
On the open ground in front of the two churches, beside the palace of the Podestà, which houses the museum, is the so-called Attila's throne, more probably the magistrates' seat. The Devil's Bridge, over an inner canal, has no parapets, as all Venetian bridges once did not.
The parish was suppressed in 1986, because the inhabitants had become too few. Torcello can be reached by boat from Burano, and its churches are still the heart of the island.