Low land, deserted, mottled with ponds and crossed through by white roads and banks of the river Sile. An island sunk deep in the colours of its flowers, whose varieties dots here and there its endless horizons. The violet colour of artichokes fields, the indigo of the cardoon flowers, the mauve colour of the Limonium which, at Torcello island, covers a large portion of its lagoon. A motionless and silent lagoon, where the grey herons find refuge and where, in spring time, one can still admire the sky darkened by the migration of millions of swallows. Torcello is not plainly just an island amongst the many others dotting and floating the lagoon, but it must be considered a place in which to rediscover the roots of Venetian history. Reducing the experience of a visit to this island by defining it juts a “tour” would not be consistent with the soul of this island. Nature, so generous with its colours and scents, it’s just but one outwardly expression of its uniqueness. Some archaeological findings have brought out a stratification dating back to Roman times and proving how Torcello was already inhabited even before 638 A.D., a year in which populations on the run found sanctuary from the mainland because of the barbarian invasions coming from the North. In fact, this area of the lagoon was the first island to be settled by the Altino people, who then later developed trade, at first through saltworks and then later with more extensive trading, so much to develop a flourishing political and religious centre which managed to number, during the periods of major grandeur, around the 16th century, well over 50,000 inhabitants.
It was in the 15th century that Torcello started to waiver due to the unhealtiness of its environment and its people started to strip the island of its marble and bricks to move to nearby Venice. Throughout the centuries only few architectures of its ancient centre have remained to testify for history: The basilica of Santa Maria Assunta, the church of San Fosco, baptistery and little palaces of the Archivio and Consiglio. As Rusking tells in his “The Stones of Venice”, the “roughness” and severity of the monuments in Torcello, undamaged by reconstructed forms of renaissance or baroque styles, expresses the “dignity of its people”, which not any inlaid stall, or not any velvet or silk embroidery, will ever be able to achieve. Even the modern Provincial Museum exhibits elements for helping to understand who the ancient people of the island were. This Museum, set-up and opened in 1872 after a donation by the then Prefect Torelli, has been the centre for collecting antiquities recovered on the island.
