Costanziaco

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Costanziaco (also Constantiacum ) was a city in the northern lagoon of Venice , more precisely northeast of Torcello , which existed from ancient times to the 12th / 13th centuries. Century existed, but with an interruption from about 4 to 6/7. Century. The location of the up to 18 hectare medieval city differs from that of the ancient city. Similar to the also submerged city of Ammiana , Costanziaco fell in the 4th to 6th centuries and then in the 11th and 12th. In the 19th century it fell victim to the rising water level of the lagoon, then to silting up by the deposits of the river Sile , but also to malaria in the High Middle Ages .

Surname

The name Costanziaco, it was speculated, goes back to “ Costanzo ”, the husband of Empress Galla Placidia , but perhaps also to Roman legions, the “Costantiacae”, as Ammianus Marcellinus calls them, who were stationed in this region.

location

There was long disagreement about the location of the city. Often Costanziaco was seen in the Palude della Centrega , then again under the water of the Palude around Torcello. The northernmost point of the city, which appears in the sources as "Capite Costanziaco", can be identified with the later Pieve di SS. Sergio e Bacco, as archaeological research and parallel study of the sources have shown. The southernmost point can be identified with the chapel of S. Pietro. The Canale La Dolce marks the eastern edge, the Palude della Rosa (Torcello) the western edge. The city thus had an area of ​​around 18 ha.

Ancient and early medieval city

In Roman times, the city was apparently in the area of ​​the Great Torcello. In the meantime, there were only two structural structures from Roman times on the north and south edges of the medieval city, today 2.35 to 2.50 m below sea level. Either they were islands, or there was a forest or gardens between the two structures.

The medieval city, however, consisted of four islands, with the names Costanziaco Maggiore and Costanziaco Minore appearing in medieval maps , which were about the same size; the names of the parishes, the contrade, were recorded. These contrade lay on the right (Costanziaco Maggiore) and on the left (Minore) one of the arms of the Sile (Sile Vecchio). Archaeological investigations revealed the remains of settlements and defenses from the 7th century. To the north of Costanziaco Maggiore were lower lying areas of the lagoon that could be used as pastures. These in turn bordered the Palude della Rosa in the west and the Palude della Centrega or Centranica in the south. In the east they bordered the latter Palude, but also the Palude del Gomblago or Bombajo. The banks of the Sile, which flows through the city, which is no more than 18 hectares in size, were fortified by wooden structures, similar to the larger buildings. In the northernmost part of Maggiore , called Capite Costantiaci in the sources , was the parish church of SS. Sergio e Bacco, while at the southernmost end there was S. Pietro. The chapels or churches of S. Mauro and S. Giovanni were added. On Minore were the churches of SS. Massimo e Marcelliano in the south, and further north, SS. Giovanni e Paolo.

Founding legend, connection to the western empire

Legend has it that it was founded by refugees from the Huns under the leadership of Attila , who was in Italy in 452. A second wave of refugees before the Hungarians occurred in the late 9th century. In contrast to the neighboring city of Ammiana , Costanziaco was not mentioned in a treaty between the Franconian Empire and Venice of February 23, 840, the Pactum Lotharii . The same applies to the confirmation of the pactum by Otto I in 967. If one follows the Codex Tarvisinus (c. 239–242), this silence of the sources is connected with the fact that Costanziaco did not belong to the ducat of Venice, but to the imperial vicariate of Treviso . The same therefore applied to the Church of SS. Biagio e Cataldo on Monte dell'Oro . This location came to Venice only after the victory over Ezzelino da Romano . It is possible that the Lombards also had claims within the lagoon, namely on the islands of Ronchi and Fossato northeast of Costanziaco.

First mention

The archipelago on which Costanziaco developed is mentioned for the first time in a bull by Pope Alexander II from 1064. In it the Pope confirmed to the Bishop of Torcello the plenitudo episcopatus over various parishes and church institutions. However, between 971 and 991 a "Dominicus, filius Georgii Gambasyrica, de Costanciaco" appeared. Other personal names of this kind followed without further details about the city being read from them. By the beginning of the 12th century at the latest, the city had a gastalde .

Construction of churches and monasteries

As in all places in the lagoon, a number of churches were built in Costanziaco, in this case SS. Sergio e Bacco ( Bakchos and Sergios ) in the north and SS. Massimo e Marcelliano, as well as S. Moro, S. Zanipolo (venez. For SS Giovanni e Paolo ), S. Maffio (Venezuelan for S. Matteo Matthäus ), S. Piero (Pietro) in the far south and S. Arian (Adriano). There were Ss. Sergio e Bacco and S. Maffio on today's island of La Cura , while the monastery of S. Arian, founded in 1160, was on Sant'Ariano . The women's monastery of S. Arian was the last to be abandoned until 1549. San Maffio di Mazzorbo , which was founded in Costanziaco in 1218, but was moved to Mazzorbo a few years later, owed its existence to the lost city. The church was abolished by Napoleon in 1810. SS. Massimo e Marcelliano and S. Zanipolo belonged to Costanziaco Minore.

In February 1229 three women - Maria da Canal, Richelda Zancarolo and Maria da Zara - founded the small monastery of San Matteo, to which the Bishop of Treviso entrusted the observance of the Benedictine Rule . 1232 the nuns requested the Pope, the Cistercian rule to be allowed to take over, but the abbot of the Cistercian monastery struggled San Tommaso dei Borgognoni , however, because their rule forbade the founding of a monastery in less than a lega distance (more km than 16). But Pope Gregory IX. Not only allowed the convent of nuns to be built, but even made it subject to apostolic protection.

Depopulation, ossuary

Obviously, living conditions deteriorated in the second half of the 13th century. This could explain why Egidio, Bishop of Torcello, left the two churches of SS Sergio e Bacco and S. Pietro di Costanziaco to the abbess of Sant'Adriano, who was founded around 1160. In 1293, San Matteo was forced to sell a plot of land on Sant'Erasmo to the monastery of San Zaccaria at an unusually low price . Only a little later the nuns were transferred from S. Mafio to Mazzorbo . This was confirmed by the Bishop of Torcello in 1298 and the construction of a new monastery was approved at the same time. In 1283 a council resolution mentioned a "turre vetere Costançagi".

A document dated April 1, 1443 allows to determine which garden crops were grown. Even before America was discovered, these include a number of non-European ground crops, such as pumpkins (zucche) and beans (these therefore came from Asian varieties), garlic, cucumber and onions, then salads, eggplants, melons and spinach. Then there were lentils, peas and field beans. The artichoke, which only appeared in the lagoon in the 16th century, was apparently not grown. In addition to agriculture, which was served by a number of mills on the Sile, fishing continued to be of great importance, but so was the extraction of salt. An indication that the use was changing rapidly, especially reduced, was the presence of snakes, especially yellow-green angry snakes, which were called here biacchi , in a document dated November 4, 1549. These often live in ruins and bushy landscapes.

In 1565 the Senate approved a proposal by the health authorities to build a wall on the island and to set up an ossuary to accommodate exhumed corpses in order to relieve the numerous cemeteries of Venice ("campielli dei morti"). On a drawing by Thomasso Scalfurotto from 1779, the bones deposit with a small church behind the wall can be seen.

The floods of 1966 destroyed many of the remains visible on the surface of the water.

Archaeological research (since 2008)

The Venice lagoon south of the mouth of the Dese river with Torcello and Burano

Since 2008 an archaeological excavation project has dealt with the islands of Sant'Ariano, La Cura and the Sette Soleri area. The finds show that the city suffered a first crisis as early as the 9th and 10th centuries, a new crisis from around 1100 finally led to the end of Costanziaco.

The chapel of S. Pietro, of which the apse has been destroyed, has been proven. The structural remains, including some graves, were dated to the 7th and 8th centuries, while the marble tympanum belonged to the 9th or 10th century.

Remnants of alleys and squares were found near the chapel, but also footpaths about 60 cm wide, which were built on 40 to 50 cm high dams. This is believed to have been a reaction to the elevated sea level in the 9th century. The existence of extensive path structures is confirmed by a document from 1255, which speaks of "callibus quoque et viis ... in tumba posita in Costantiaco". Along the Canale La Dolce there are paths for a length of 800 m. These structures do not correspond to the typical geometric structures of Roman times, but rather to meandering path systems adapted to the natural environment. The structures only become straight where they border the open lagoon. Bronze coins from Roman times were found in Canale La Dolce.

By 2015, there were 40 structures on the investigated area to the right of the canal, including a structure measuring 35 by 27 m. It should be a packing house or warehouse , as they were typical for river ports. In addition, there are more than 400 pali , i.e. piles driven into the ground. They date from the 7th century. These were the starting points of the said paths and alleys, so that they were probably landing stages. Here, too, there was a need to adapt to the rising sea level through new rows of fortifications.

The remains of the S. Ariano Monastery, which was built in 1160, were also discovered. The founder was Beata Anna, daughter of Doge Vitale Michiel II and wife of Nicolò Giustiniano. Building structures from the 12th and 13th centuries can be found in the neighborhood. A massive structure made of stone blocks could have represented a fortification. The aforementioned council resolution of 1283, which calls a "turre vetere Costançagi" (Codex Tarvisinus), probably fits this mighty building. The veneration of St. Sergius and Bacchus in the form of a church refers to the patron saints of soldiers in Byzantine times; the shrinking city had to provide 20 excusati to the tribunes in the 11th century , while Murano had 40 and Rivoalto already 120. In the 12th century local families such as the Viaro left their property to the monastery and moved to Venice. Finally, the parish church of SS. Sergio e Bacco also went to the monastery. At the beginning of the 15th century a fire destroyed parts of the monastery complex, in the middle of the 16th century the few remaining nuns left the monastery. They had already fled to a rented house in Murano every summer. Each of the cells in the monastery had a sewer; a well was built by the 13th century at the latest. The buildings were demolished in the 16th century, numerous stones were moved to the Giudecca and built into the Redentore Church , which was built there from 1577 to 1592.

In the lower, Roman strata, a first phase of decline could be seen, i.e. before the two of the 9th / 10th centuries. and 11./12. Century. The settlement was therefore very thin in the 4th to 6th centuries. There are no archaeological indications of warlike destruction. Resistance to decline is demonstrated by the fact that elevated paths served as a means of maintaining connections. A cemetery was also used. In the 16th century, some "huomini coraggiosi" ('courageous men') tried to fetch gravestones from the Barene di S. Ariano, which were found on half-sunken streets, haunted by snakes. Remnants of ancient roads can still be seen on a map from 1627.

literature

  • Ernesto Canal : Archeologia della laguna di Venezia , Venice 2015, pp. 326–346.
  • Arianna Traviglia, Daniela Cottica, Davide Busato: Dalla ricerca d'archivio al remote sensing: metodologie integrate per lo studio del paesaggio antropico. Il caso dell'antica Costanziaco, Laguna Nord di Venezia , Fabrizio Serra, Venice 2008 ( abstract ).
  • Davide Busato, Mario Rosso, Paola Sfameni: Le conseguenze delle variazioni geografiche avvenute tra il XIII ed il XV secolo su talune comunità monastiche ubicate in alcune isole della laguna north di Venezia. o. O., o. J. [2007?] ( online, PDF, 552 kB )

Remarks

  1. ^ Ernesto Canal : Archeologia della laguna di Venezia , Venice 2015, p. 330.
  2. ^ Giovanni Distefano, Franco Rocchetta: Atlante storico di Venezia , Supernova, 2008, p. 902.
  3. ^ Ernesto Canal : Archeologia della laguna di Venezia , Venice 2015, p. 326.
  4. ^ Ernesto Canal: Archeologia della laguna di Venezia , Venice 2015, p. 326.
  5. ↑ Renato D'Antiga: Guida alla Venezia Bizantina. Santi, reliquie e icone , Casadei libri, 2005, p. 16.
  6. ↑ Archivio veneto (1995).
  7. ↑ Alessandro Cinquegrani: Cartoline Venetians. Ciclo di seminari di letteratura italiana: Università Ca 'Foscari di Venezia, 16 gennaio-18 giugno 2008 , Officina di Studi Medievali, 2009, p. 88.
  8. ^ Giovanni Caniato, Eugenio Turri, Michele Zanetti: La laguna di Venezia , Unesco, 1995, p. 210.
  9. ^ Ernesto Canal: Archeologia della laguna di Venezia , Venice 2015, p. 327.
  10. ^ Ernesto Canal: Archeologia della laguna di Venezia , Venice 2015, p. 335 (illustration of six coins).
  11. ^ Ernesto Canal: Archeologia della laguna di Venezia , Venice 2015, pp. 341–344.

Coordinates: 45 ° 30 ′ 0 ″  N , 12 ° 26 ′ 13.2 ″  E