Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta
(Piazza Torcello; adult/reduced €5/4, incl museum €8/6; 10.30am-6pm Mar-Oct, 10am-5pm Nov-Feb;
Torcello)
Life choices are presented in no uncertain terms in Santa Maria Assunta's
vivid cautionary tale: look ahead to a golden afterlife amid saints and a beatific Madonna,
or turn your back on her to face the wrath of a devil gloating over lost souls. In existence
for more than a millennium, this cathedral is the lagoon's oldest Byzantine-Romanesque
monument.
The restrained brick exterior (c 824) betrays no hint of the colourful scene that unfolds
as you enter. The Madonna rises in the east like the sun above a field of corn poppies in
the 12th-century apse mosaic, while the back wall vividly depicts the dire consequences
of dodging biblical commandments. This extraordinary
Last Judgment mosaic
shows the
Adriatic as a sea nymph ushering souls lost at sea towards St Peter while a sneaky devil
tips the scales of justice, and the Antichrist's minions drag sinners into a hell populated
with bloated gluttons and greedy, bejewelled merchants.
CHURCH
