Museo di Torcello

Across the square from the Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta in the 13th-century Palazzo del Consiglio is this museum dedicated to the island. On the ground floor are some sculptural fragments from the cathedral, a 6th-century holy-water font and a curious display of Byzantine objects from Constantinople. Upstairs, you’ll find a series of surprisingly dark religious paintings from the workshops of Veronese, and sundry ancient office supplies from Torcello’s bureaucracy, including a 7th-century lead seal that must have made paperwork downright toxic. The museum’s ancient artefacts are held in the Palazzo dell’Archivio, opposite the Palazzo del Consiglio. They include Roman bronze implements and figurines, and some statuary and funerary stelae (inscribed, stone columns). The Roman items were mostly unearthed at the now-vanished Altino. The rough-hewn stone chair outside is known as the Trono d’Attila (Attila’s Throne). Legend has it that this uncomfortable and singularly unimpressive seat belonged to Attila the Hun, though according to historical accounts this is highly unlikely. The chair may have been acquired through plunder on a maritime conquest and pawned off with a likely story on some gullible resident of Torcello. No one knows why it’s here in the campo; it’s assumed that magistrates sat here to make public proclamations.