Bella Torchello

Greetings! 

I am beyond elated to be writing to you from Venice! I’m Sienna (or Sea) Gallus and I’ll be studying here until the 8th of January 2025. This trip will last about two weeks for me and will be focused on the following topics:

-Art/ architecture

-Modern/ past culture & history 

-Challenges facing Venice: over-tourism, flooding, gentrification, native Venetians fleeing the city & pollution 

This past weekend, my wonderful friends Jack Devaney and Colin Cook explored this breathtaking city with me. We loved getting acquainted with the kind Venetians who still live and work on the island and were blown away by the food! There is a certain sense of being home here for me, although my Italian ancestors were from more southern, regions. Perhaps it’s the generally welcoming nature of the Venetians, or the overwhelming beauty of the city —but I never want to leave. Although the presence of the issues I’ve mentioned are very noticeable for the common person, I will elaborate more on them as the week persists because today I ventured off of Venice!

I’ve been to Venice once before and was able to take excursions to Morano and Burano, but today I got to see Torchella, an underrated island within the lagoon. It is also the location of the first civilization in the lagoon that Venice resides in. It’s massively less packed with tourists and there is a peaceful quiet that seems to hang in the air. There is a church there which we were able to explore that dates back to the 6th century. Only one preserved wall of the church from that time remains, but an only slightly more modernized interior/exterior has been built around it. There’s an amazingly intricate mosaic piece on one wall that depicts a soul’s decent into hell or its pathway to heaven upon the second coming of Christ. This depiction of the last judgement had some truly bothersome imagery of demons eating sinners, humans swimming in the fires of hell and masses of skulls. Considering this Church was built to recruit Christians after their persecution had ended (post the legally-required practice Paganism) there is an obvious strategic goal to strike fear into those who sought new religion. Putting myself in the shoes of someone back then, if I was preached to that this horrible fate awaited me should I sin, I may have deeply immersed myself in the faith as well. 

Afterwards we climbed an old bell tower beside the church and got an incredible view of the lagoon, which my professor commented resembles how Venice used to look before humans heavily developed it.

Above is the view we saw from the bell tower. I found it interesting that bells were to be used to tell time before the invention of clocks!