Torcello, the earliest inhabitated place in the lagoon, has a rather agrarian feel to it like so many other islands around Venice itself. As the story goes, the first settlers were refugees from the Roman town of Altino trying to escape from the Longobard invadors who, in the 7th century had arrived ransacking and pillaging from northern Europe. The history is still widely debated by archeologists, but it does seem likely that Torcello was first populated by people coming in from the mainland to avoid the threat of barbarian invadors. What is certain, however, is that today the island only has 16 residents.
