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Before There Was a Venice, There Was Torcello
Glittering mosaics, breathtaking views, and a marshy proto-Venice in the Venetian Northern Lagoon
Grassy, semi-deserted Torcello is pretty much a one-trick pony. Torcello was the first of the lagoon islands to be called home by a mainland population fleeing the Barbarian hordes that overran the Italian peninsula during the Dark Ages (from here, they eventaully moved to the area around the Rialto Bridge to build what we now know as Venice). However, today Torcello consists of little more than one long canal leading from the vaporetto landing past sad-sack vineyards to a clump of buildings at its center.
From the ferry dock, follow the solitary long canal on a 10-minute stroll to Venice's oldest monument, the Cattedrale di Torcello (Santa Maria Assunta), whose foundation dates from the 7th century. It's famous for its outstanding 11th- to 12th-century Byzantine mosaics—a Madonna and Child in the apse and a Last Judgment on the west wall—rivaling those of Ravenna and St. Mark's Basilica.
Venice 1.0
Torcello's marshy badlands give you the best feeling for what Venice looked like when people first started settling there. Actually, Torcello predates Venice, and it was a thriving center of some 20,000 souls from the 7th to 11th centuries. Then malaria and competition from La Serenissima set in and quickly depopulated the isle. It now runs on a skeleton crew of 75 inhabitants.
Across the square from the church is the dinky Museo dell'Estuario, a collection split between archaeological fragments and the remains of some 10 other churches that once sprinkled Torcello's landscape. Also of interest is the spare 11th-century church dedicated to St. Fosca adjacent to the cathedral.
Aside from a lone, tipsy belltower you can climb, the rest of the island is given over to swampy canals outlined by logs hammered into the muddy banks (a glimpse at how Venice looked before the stone palazzi were built), a scraggly vineyard, and—somewhat incongrously—a world-famous restaurant (world famous because Hemingway loved it) called Locanda Cipriani.
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This article was last updated in January 2007. All information was accurate at the time.
Copyright © 1998–2008 by Reid Bramblett. All rights reserved.
