Ammiana was a settlement in an archipelago in the northern part of the Lagoon of Venice which has disappeared. Its islands were part of a larger number of islands in this part of the lagoon which also included the island group of the next-door settlement of Costanziaco (just to the east) and the islands of Torcello, Burano and Mazzorbo to the south-east. The islands of Ammiana were between the right and left banks of the lagunar channels which today are called della Dolce and San Felice. Another island, which was called tumba della Leseda and is now called La Salina, which lies on the right (eastern) bank of the San Felice channel, was also part of this settlement.
Like other settlements on islands of this part of this lagoon, it flourished between the 7th and 13th century but declined in the 13th century due to deteriorating environmental conditions and was abandoned by the mid-14th century. Like the next door Costanziaco, some of its islands were subsequently submerged by the waters of the lagoon.
The archipelago comprised the islands of Ammianella (which had the Santi Andrea e Giacomo monastery), Castrazio (which had the San Lorenzo church and monastery), Orti di Ammiana (which had the monasteries of Santi Filippo e Giacomo Apostoli, S. Marco, which was later renamed Santa Cristina, and the church and monastery of Sant’Angelo) and other islands which in the Middle Ages were called tumbae: tumba Ambrosii, tumba della Gaiada (which had the church and monastery of Santa Maria Maddalena della Gaiada) and tumba Leseda (which had the monastery of Santi Felice e Fortunato).Magrini G., La Laguna di Venezia, in Magrini G., (ed), La Laguna di Venezia (monograph) Delegazione Italiana della Commissione per l’esplorazione scientifica del Mediterraneo, Atlante II, 1933.
Hardly anything is known about the life and politics of this settlement. There is only information form archival documents held in the island of Torcello, which at the time was the chief administrative centre of this part of the Lagoon of Venice. These are legal documents regarding transactions, such as sales and purchases of property, bequests and disputes. The documents have provided information about the churches and monasteries of these islands and their locations.
Early historical record The earliest information about the area and the settlement comes from the Pactum Lotharii of 840, an agreement of the emperor Lothair I with the peoples of the lagoons on the coast of north-western Italy. The pact confirmed its inhabitants’ right to graze their animals in the Treviso area, on the mainland. It cites Torcello, Ammiana and Burano in this order but does not mention the nearby Costanziaco. This arrangement was renewed in 907 by the emperor Otto I. It mentions the same settlements in the same order. In 900 the monastery of Santo Stefano in Altinum (near the closest mainland shore of the lagoon) moved to Ammiana, assumed the name of Santi Felice e Fortunato and owned the churches of S. Giustina in Lido delle Vignole (on the Vignole island) and of S. Felice di Dozza (a village near Bologna).
The Chronicon Venetum et Gradense a chronicle which was written in the mid-10th/early 11th century, reports the foundation of churches and monasteries in this area. According to this, the Frauduni. Willareni and Mastalici families initially built the church of San Lorenzo. Later these families built a bridge called San Lorenzo and a castle. This was attested in a 1152 document. The families then moved to Ammiana. Later the use of marshes and fish farms and the construction of mills were granted. The families also built the church of San Marco and put it under the jurisdiction of the monastery of San Lorenzo. Shortly afterwards they built the church of Santi Sergio e Bacco and the church of Santi Marcelliano e Massimo in Costanziaco. These became the parish churches of Costanziaco.
The first direct source of information about Ammiana was the will of the doge Pietro Ziani (1205–1229) written in 1228 which provided first exhaustive list of monasteries. The listed monasteries in Ammiana were San Felice, San Lorenzo, Sant’Andrea, Sant’Angelo, San Marco, Sant’Adriano di Ammiana (even though this was actually in Costanziaco), Santi Apostoli and Santa Maria della Galada. For Costanziaco only San Giovanni was mentioned.
Islands, churches and monasteries
Ammianella or Sant’Andrea di Ammiana and the Sant'Andrea church and monastery This was the northernmost island of the archipelago. It was just to the north of Orti di Ammiana. The first attestation of the Sant’Adrea church was a 1152 document which said that it was close to Orti di Ammiana and the San Lorenzo bridge. It was subordinate to the San Lorenzo monastery as attested by a 1180 document which recorded its donation to this monastery.Lanfranchi L., S. Lorenzo di Ammiana, Comitato per la pubblicazione delle fonti relative alla storia di Venezia, 1969, cit., doc. 65 p. 72. The Cenobitic monastery of Sant'Andrea e Giacomo was built next to it. Following the establishment of this monastery, the island was renamed Sant'Andrea di Ammiana. In the early 15th century the monastery was in distress and a 1455 document reported the intention of using the church to obtain building materials to be taken to Venice to use them for the Saint Mark's Basilica in Venice.
Orti di Ammiana This island was sometimes referred to as Ammiana. However, its full name was Orti di Ammiana (Vegetable Gardens of Ammiana). It was the largest and most important island of the archipelago. It had the following monasteries:
Sant’Angelo church and monastery - The Sant’Angelo church was granted, with the consent of the San Lorenzo monastery, to two nuns. They built the Sant’Angelo monastery which received a donation in the will of the doge Pietro Ziani (1205–1229) in 1228. From a document of the public property authority of the Republic of Venice regarding the tumba Ambrosii (see below) it can be assumed that this church was not far from the monastery of Santa Maria in Gaiada on the tumba Gaiada (see below). It stated that "one of [the tumba Ambrosii's] sides faced Ammiana and that on this side, Ammiana strengthened the part of the bank of the branch of Gaiada ... as far as the corner of the wall of Sant’Angelo and only in the part of the wall by Orti di Ammiana." The term branch of the Gaiada must have referred to a channel which separated Orti di Ammiana and the tumba Gaiada. In 1438 Pope Eugene IV seconded the nuns to the monastery of Sant’Eufemia in Mazzorbo.Mazzucco G., I Monasteri benedettini nella laguna di Venezia, Arsenale editrice, 1983, p. 68 ASIN: B00KU2MSXA San Marco/Santa Cristina monastery - Originally this monastery was called San Marco. It was built around the 7th century by the Falier family. It was run by Benedictine nuns. In 1325 the body of Santa Cristina was smuggled from Constantinople to this monastery, which came to be called San Cristina. In official documents it was indicated as Sancti Marci de Aymanis in quarum loco est corpus Sancte Cristine (Saint Mark of Ammiana where the body of Saint Christine is).
The monastery of San Marco was mentioned in the Chronicon Venetum et Gradense (see above), which stated that it was subordinate to the monastery of San Lorenzo. By virtue of this relationship, in 1229 this monastery represented San Lorenzo in a dispute over a plot of land and a vineyard in the nearby Lio Piccolo which involved the latter monastery and in which there was the mediation of a papal envoy. In 1332 the abbess and the nuns were granted financial help for the repair of the monastery, its foundations and its lodgings.Archivio di Stato di Venezia, Grazie, reg. 4 c. 19 t., 1332 24 marzo This indicated that the area was undergoing significant environmental degradation. Two years later, in 1334, the nuns were granted 40 soldos for the repair of the foundations of the cloisters and the refectory.Archivio di Stato di Venezia, Grazie, reg. 6 c. 15 t., 1334 28 marzo In 1340 the nuns moved to the monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli on the Murano island, but the senate of the Republic of Venice ordered them to return to Ammiana. In 1343 the archive of the Republic of Venice recorded that the nuns suffered hardship and poverty and could not sustain the church and its buildings. They were granted 10 soldos.Archivio di Stato di Venezia, Grazie, reg. 9 c. 91 t° 1343, 18 Maggio
In 1432 the environmental conditions had become so prohibitive that the last few nuns who had remained in the monastery were incorporated into the monastery of Sant’Antonio in Torcello. The nuns stopped paying the parish church of San Salvador for land they used in Lio Piccolo. The body of Santa Cristina was moved to Torcello, too. It was later moved to the Santa Giustina church in Venice. This church was closed down by Napoleon when he conquered Venice. The body was moved to the San Francesco del Deserto island in 1810. Now it is in an urn in the Priuli chapel of the church of St Francis.
Santi Apostoli Filippo e Giacomo monastery -This monastery is mentioned in the article by Busato, Rosso and Sfameni and is indicated in a photo it provides. However, it does not give any information about this monastery. It provides a quotation form a 1343 document which is placed under the section about San Marco. This document referred to the abbattisse et monialibus Sanctorum Apostolorum de Aymanis, the abbess and nuns of Saints Apostles of Ammiana. It said that they were in great distress and poverty and were not able to repair the monastery and its buildings, which were under continuous treat of going to ruin. They were granted 10 soldos.Archivio di Stato di Venezia, Grazie, reg. 6 c. 15 t., 28 March 1334
Castrazio and the San Lorenzo monastery This island was in the centre of the archipelago, to the southeast of Orti di Ammiana, from which it was probably separated by the San Lorenzo channel, to the west to tumba Leseda, from which it was separated by the San Felice channel, and to the north of tumba della Gaiada, which was probably further south along the San Lorenzo channel.
San Lorenzo monastery - This was the top monastic institution in the area. The monasteries of Sant’Angelo, San Marco/Santa Cristina and Santi Apostoli Filippo, in Orti di Ammiana, and Sant’ Andrea in Ammianella were subordinate to it. So were the two parish churches of the next-door settlement of Costanziaco: Santi Massimo e Marcelliano and Santi Sergio e Bacco. The importance of this monastery led to a number of legal disputes with the monastery of Santi Felice e Fortunato on the next door tumba Leseda island. In 1428 Pope Eugenius IV gave his consent to join the nuns of this monastery to the monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Murano.
San Lorenzo parish church - Lanfranchi gives 1038 as the date of the first documentary attestation of the church.Lanfranchi L., (ed), San Lorenzo di Ammiana. Fonti per la Storia di Venezia. Sez. II – Archivi ecclesiastici – Diocesi Torcellana, 1969 However, the source he used is dubious. The first attestation of this church having a parish jurisdiction was in 1131. In the past archaeologists identified elements of this church, which was older than the San Lorenzo monastery, in the structure of the complex of this monastery and attributed its origin to the Early Middle Ages on the basis of a marble capital and decorative stylistic features which are compatible with 9th century epigraphic characters. However, the opinion has changed and the possibility of an Early Middle Age origin had been ruled out because it seems that after the end of the Late antiquity period (6th century) the island was settled only on and off and because there is a total absence of finds of pottery used as transport containers after the late 7th/early 8th century, which suggests an absence or very low levels of human activity.