Torcello - Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta

Venice (ital. Venezia) is one of the most important tourist destinations worldwide with about 30 million visitors each year.

I have already uploaded dozens of shots from previous visits, so I´ll try to cut down the number of uploads this time.

Torcello island at the northern end of the Venetian Lagoon. It has been referred to as the parent island from which Venice was populated. It was a town with a cathedral and bishops before St Mark's Basilica was built.

Torcello was one of the first lagoon islands to be populated by those Veneti who fled the "terra ferma" to take shelter from the barbarian invasions, especially after Attila the Hun had destroyed the city of Altinum in 452. In 638, Torcello became the bishop’s official seat for more than a thousand years and the people of Altinum brought with them the relics of Saint Heliodorus, now the patron saint of the island.

Torcello rapidly grew in importance as a political and trading center. In pre-Medieval times, Torcello was a much more powerful trading center than Venice.

A serious issue for Torcello was that the swamp area of the lagoon around the island increased by the 14th century. Navigation in the laguna was impossible and traders ceased calling at the island. The growing swamps also seriously aggravated malaria.

As a result, by the late 14th century, a substantial number of people left the island. In 1689, the bishopric transferred to Murano, and by 1797, the population had dropped to about 300. Today it is less than 20.

Torcello's numerous palazzi, its twelve parishes, and its sixteen cloisters have almost disappeared since the Venetians recycled the useful building material.

The island owes its importance in art history to the Basilica of Santa Maria Assunta. The basilica seen today was consecrated in 1008 and was probably completed by the middle of the 11th century. It has much 11th and 12th-century Byzantine work, including large mosaics.

This large mosaic was still under renovation in 2021. When the Episcopal Church was moved from here to Murano, a very similar mosaic was created in the Basilica of Murano.