Torcello: A Ghost Island 10km north-east of Venice
Michael Johanning (1985 UTC) published under GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2
Torcello is an island 10km
to the north-east of Venice. It was the first island in the lagoon to be
settled by the Veneti after the collapse of the western Roman Empire and
the Germanic invasions of the fifth and sixth centuries.
Torcello was virtually impregnable and so became an attractive refuge
for the enterprising merchants and tradesmen who fled the increasingly
vulnerable Roman towns.
The island quickly developed trading links with the Byzantine empire and
acquired considerable wealth through the extraction and sale of salt
harvested from the lagoon marshes.
Torcello was once divided into ten parishes and possessed numerous
palazzi, monastries, statues and monuments. At one time its population
exceeded twenty thousand.
Although Torcello was officially part of the Byzantine Empire, it was
ruled for all practical purposes by the Bishop of Altino who made the
island his official See in 638 AD.
In 639 AD, the bishop commissioned the construction of the island's
cathedral, the Santa Maria dell’ Assunta, which contains several
splendid Byzantine treasures.
The beautiful golden 13th century mosaic of the Madonna and Child is
displayed in the apse while the west wall is decorated by a huge 12th
century mosaic depicting the Last Judgement.
The church is also notable for a series of intricate capitals which
support the nave and the finely carved Byzantine panels of the rood
screen.
The Gothic bell tower was
added to the cathedral in the 11th century. At the same time work
commenced on a neighbouring church, the Santa Fosca.
The Santa Fosca is surrounded on three sides by a colonnade of stilted
arches; its spacious interior is crowned by a central dome supported by
marble Corinthian columns.
Ricci Speziari Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike License, version 2.5.
A large stone, roughly
hewn into the shape of an over-sized armchair, is located in the
vicinity of the Santa Fosca. It is reputed to be Attila's throne, but
this is unlikely since Torcello was not settled until more than one
hundred years after Attila's death.
Torcello became inaccessible in the twelfth century after the lagoon
silted up. The increased volume of swampland lead to malaria epidemics
and the island's inhabitants migrated to the neighbouring settlements of
Venice, Murano and Burano.
As the people left, they took most of the buildings with them. Whole
structures were quickly dismantled so that the stones could be used
elsewhere and Torcello became a ghost town virtually overnight.
A huge volume of archaeological debris still lies where it was abandoned
almost eight hundred years ago. This contributes to the island's
poignant atmosphere which has captivated many visitors including Ernest
Hemingway who stayed on Torcello for six months in 1949.
The Museo dell’Estuario, next to the Santa Fosca, displays many of
Torcello's archeological treasures but in truth the entire island is
covered with the debris of an urgently abandoned Byzantine city.
Torcello can be reached by vaporetto from the Fondamente Nuove (route
14). Crossings take approximately 45 minutes.
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