The Fifth Act by Elliot Ackerman

Author:Elliot Ackerman [Ackerman, Elliot]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2022-08-09T00:00:00+00:00

SCENE IV

Torcello, Venice

The six of us follow our tour guide down a gravel path. She is walking backward, explaining the history of this place. Torcello is the oldest inhabited island in the municipality of Venice. After Attila the Hun sacked the port city of Altinum, in 452, the Roman inhabitants fled into the lagoon. They spread out, urban refugees, finding sanctuary on the water from invasions and wars. They brought their church with them, and in 638, the bishop of Altino seated himself in Torcello, building what we are about to see, the basilica of Santa Maria Assunta. For almost five hundred years, Torcello thrived as a seat of power and commerce. At its height, it’s estimated to have had 35,000 inhabitants, and was far more powerful than Venice. But one age slips to the next. Environmental changes (a rise in the water level) and a pandemic (the fourteenth-century black death) devastate Torcello. Its inhabitants again flee. Today, Torcello boasts a population of twelve. The spire of its basilica comes into view above the treetops.

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