Torcello: The "lost" island where Venice began
Grand mosaics of Heaven and the End of the World
We left the train station stop in Venice about 1pm, and finally arrived at Torcello’s landing about 4:30, after three very long boat rides. It gave us an hour to walk around, before getting back on the boats and doing it all over again backwards, in time to watch the incredible red sun setting over Venice from the lagoon.
The mother of Venice
Torcello is one of the quietest and most remote parts of Venice, a reed-fringed island at the northern edge of the lagoon that feels like a forgotten echo of the city’s most remote and misty past. Today, more waterfowl than people call it home, but in late antiquity, Torcello was a vital refuge. Waves of Roman citizens fled here from the mainland in the 4th and 5th centuries, escaping the chaos of collapsing imperial authority and the onslaught of barbarian tribes including the dreaded forces of Attila the Hun.
Long before the Byzantine grandeur of San Marco, this was the beating heart of the lagoon’s spiritual and civic life. Today, its few remaining structures - most notably the paleo-Christian Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta - guard some of the finest medieval Italo-Byzantine mosaics in Italy, shimmering witnesses to a time when Venice was still finding its soul.
Founded in AD 639, it is the oldest standing church in the Venetian Lagoon, and one of the oldest churches in Europe. Behind its austere brick Byzantine façade lies a glittering world of golden mosaics, including one of Italy’s most powerful Last Judgments. This towering, multi-tiered mosaic covers the entire west wall of the cathedral, confronting visitors as they enter with a vivid and deeply symbolic vision of the end of time.
I can attest that it blasts you in the face - overwhelming. The great Pantocrator Christ, imposing Byzantine angels, saints, and the resurrected stand in layers of storytelling, with harrowing depictions of damnation. It is a “Dark Ages” masterpiece of gleaming Byzantine theology and artistry, designed to stir the soul and urge reflection on the final destiny of mankind.
This post for paid subscribers takes us deep into the golden walls of Torcello’s cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta, where apocalyptic visions and serene Madonnas have survived tides of history, war, and the salty ravages of the lagoon.
This past weekend I travelled to Venice, Torcello, and Ravenna specifically to see these artistic treasures first hand, walking through these extraordinary spaces, studying the details up close, and experiencing the light, scale, and atmosphere that photos simply can’t capture.
This was not a holiday, but a pilgrimage of discovery for me and a research trip, (which cost several hundred Euros) and marks the start of the next phase of the plan for this work: bringing richer, on-the-ground insights directly to members. There will be a lot more of this kind of in-depth exploration as the project grows.
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At the Sacred Images Project we talk about Christian life, thought, history and culture through the lens of the first 1200 years of sacred art. The publication is supported by subscriptions, so apart from plugging my shop, there is no advertising or pop-ups. It’s my full time job, and while it’s now providing me with a full time income, we are now looking at growing this into a multi-layered, multi-media project, so I can’t yet provide all the things I want to and am planning for.
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From the shop: since we’re going to be talking about the opening of the monastic tradition in Egypt in this section of the Big Editorial Plan, this might be a good time for a little print of St. Anthony of the Desert, the father of monks. This is a little egg tempera painting I did based on a 14th century fresco in one of Narni’s medieval churches. The original is sold, but you can have a high quality art print either on a wood panel, or museum quality paper.
I think it would make an elegant addition to a prayer corner or mantel.
You can order one, and lots of other nice things, at the shop, here:
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