Isole fortunate? La storia della laguna nord di Venezia attraverso lo scavo di San Lorenzo di Ammiana

Fortunate Islands? The History of the northern Venetian Lagoon on the basis of the excavation of San Lorenzo Ammiana. The main purpose of the research project at San Lorenzo di Ammiana, a small island located in the northern part of the Venetian Lagoon north of Torcello and west of the Canal of San Felice, was to re-examine, from a new perspective and with new instruments, one of the most famous archaeological sequences from the beginning of the Early Middle Ages in the Lagoon. The information that we have from written sources can be divided into two types: archival documents and chronicles (paragraphs 3 e 4); these latter are often filled with legendary elements and, in any case, always written many years after the events that they describe. These sources inform us that in the Late Middle Ages San Lorenzo di Ammiana was at the center of a territorial district, that is, an archipelago that included the present day islands of Santa Cristina, La Salina and Motta dei Cunicci. Archival documents mention the island for the first time only in the 11th century when they refer to a Church named for San Lorenzo, which was under the jurisdiction of the bishopric of Torcello, and they give a description of an area of the lagoon that was distinctly rural. In 1185 the bishop of Torcello conferred the church and all its appurtenances to two pious women so that they could found a cenobitic Benedictine community there. From that time on the fate of the island was inextricably bound to that of the monastery. In fact, when the monastic community finally came to an end with the definitive abandonment of the convent in 1438, the stable occupancy of San Lorenzo was also concluded.