Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Torcello

TORCELLO, a small island 6 miles north-east of Venice, now almost deserted, but once a place of much importance. Torcello was one of the parent islands from which Venice was colonized, and possessed a cathedral church long before St Mark's was founded. In the 11th century Torcello had already begun rapidly to decline. The existing cathedral of S. Maria is a building of the highest ecclesiological importance, unique in Europe as a perfect example of the arrangement of the choir in the 6th or 7th century, when the original cathedral was built, and, though most of the upper structure was rebuilt by Bishop Orseolo^[1] about 1008, the plan of the church and the fittings of the choir still exist as they were originally designed. The church consists of a nave, with ten bays of arches on marble monoliths, and three aisles each terminated by an apse. Round the walls of the central apse are six tiers of seats for the officiating clergy, and, in the centre, raised above the others, a marble throne for the bishop, approached by a flight of steps (see vol. iii. p. 418, fig. 16). The high altar stood in front of the steps, and the celebrant stood with his back to the apse, looking over the altar towards the congregation. An exactly similar arrangement still exists in many of the early Coptic churches of Old Cairo: the church of Abu Sergeh is a specially perfect example.^[2] When the church was reconstructed in 1008, Bishop Orseolo did not interfere with the older and then obsolete arrangements of the choir, but added a later choir, formed by marble screens, projecting three bays into the nave, with seats along three sides of the enclosure,—an arrangement like that which still exists in the church of S. Clemente in Rome (see Rome, vol. xx. p. 833). The present choir-stalls date from the 15th century. A fine marble ambo was at the same time placed outside the cancelli, and the position of the celebrant at the high altar was reversed. The vaults of the three apses are covered with fine glass mosaics, added probably in the 12th century: in the centre is a large figure of the Virgin, with the twelve apostles below; other mosaics cover the vaults of the aisle-apses and the whole entrance wall. The latter, much restored, has scenes of the Crucifixion, the Doom, and Heaven and Hell. The sculpture of the nave capitals and on the marble cancelli is very graceful work of Byzantine style, closely resembling similar panels at Ravenna. One remarkable peculiarity of this church is the marble shutter which closes each window on the right wall; these have pivots which revolve in projecting corbels—a very early method of closing windows of which very few examples still exist. Even when the shutters were closed some dim light passed through the semi-translucent marble slabs.^[3] An octagonal baptistery, also built by Bishop Orseolo, stood outside the main entrance to the church, but has been rebuilt on a smaller scale. The crypt under the central apse of the cathedral is probably part of the original church, unaltered by any later changes.^[4] The small church of S. Fosca, which is connected with the cathedral by a loggia, is also a building of exceptional interest, dating from the 10th century. It is purely Oriental in plan, and much resembles that of St Mark's at Venice and S. Vitale at Ravenna, on a small scale. It has a cruciform nave, with a large dome supported on eight columns, and a projecting choir with three apses. Externally it is surrounded by a loggia, supported on marble columns with rich Byzantine capitals. S. Fosca was partially rebuilt in the 12th century, and has since been much modernized, but its original very interesting plan still remains but little changed.

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1. Son of the Venetian doge Pietro Orseolo I.
2. See Middleton in Archæologia, vol. xlviii. p. 398.
3. Similar marble slabs, not made to move, still exist in the apse windows of S. Miniato, near Florence, and once existed in the basilica of S. Lorenzo fuori le Mura, Rome.
4. The cathedral of Parenzo, in Istria, a work of the 6th century, much resembles the cathedral of Torcello (see vol. iii. p. 418, fig. 17). Similar plans are also to be seen in many of the early churches of Syria (see De Vogüé, Syrie Centrale, Paris, 1865) as well as in the Coptic churches of Egypt.