When Torcello Was the Most Important City in the Lagoon

The first time I took some friends to Torcello, they all asked me the same question: “But where are the people who live here?”

It's an understandable question.

Today Torcello is one of the quietest islands in the Venetian lagoon.

After getting off the vaporetto, you walk along a long path lined by water, cross the famous Devil's Bridge and reach the square dominated by the Basilica of Santa Maria Assunta.

All around reigns a silence that seems to belong to another age.

And yet there was a time when Torcello was one of the most important places in the entire lagoon.

Walking today among meadows, vegetable gardens and canals, it is hard to imagine.

Yet archaeologists have discovered that this area was frequented long before the birth of the Serenissima.

The inhabitants of Altinum, the great Roman city that stood on the mainland just a few kilometres away, knew these waters well.

Here they found safe landing places, fished, gathered salt and carried out trade linked to the lagoon.

For many years it was thought that Torcello came into being only when the people of Altinum sought refuge from the barbarian invasions between the 5th and 7th centuries.

Today scholars believe that the reality is more complex.

Even before the refugees arrived, there were already activities and settlements taking advantage of the island's strategic position.

When conditions on the mainland became more difficult, moving to Torcello was therefore a natural choice.

People did not arrive in an unknown place, but in an area they had already been frequenting for generations.

In the centuries that followed, the island enjoyed extraordinary growth.

Thanks to its links with the Adriatic and the hinterland, Torcello became an important commercial and religious centre.

Merchant ships moored along the canals, craftsmen and traders brought the town to life, and the population reached numbers that seem incredible today for such a peaceful place.

Many historians believe that at the height of its splendour Torcello was one of the most populous and dynamic centres in the lagoon.

While Venice was still shaping its own identity, here there were already churches, markets, workshops and trade links with the rest of the known world.

Then came the decline.

Over the centuries the canals gradually silted up, the marshland spread and many activities moved to Venice, which in the meantime was becoming the lagoon's main political and economic centre.

The inhabitants slowly left the island, taking with them building materials, knowledge and traditions.

Today some extraordinary traces of that past remain.

The Basilica of Santa Maria Assunta houses some of the most important mosaics in the Venetian area.

Beside it stand the Church of Santa Fosca and the famous Devil's Bridge, shrouded in legends and folk tales.

My grandfather always used to say that to understand Venice, you must first look at the islands.

On Torcello, these words take on a special meaning.

Long before Venice became the Serenissima, an important part of the lagoon's history was already taking shape here, among the reed beds and the calm waters of the northern lagoon.

When you visit Torcello, try to stop for a few minutes in front of the Basilica or along the main canal.

Behind the silence that defines the island today lies the memory of a community that, for many centuries, was one of the true beating hearts of the Venetian lagoon.