Caorle Old Town Historical Timeline

Origins

Caorle was a Roman port and an early bishopric, and its centre grew on the slightly higher ground of the promontory between what are now the two beaches.

Turning points

Under Venice from the fourteenth century the town was a modest fishing and salt community, and the fabric that survives -- low, tight, plain -- is the fabric of that economy rather than of any prosperity.

Influential people

The canals that once ran through the town were progressively filled in, leaving Rio Terrà, whose name means exactly that: a canal turned into land, the same term used in Venice.

Cultural evolution

The painted facades follow the same logic as Burano's, in a place that shared the same lagoon economy and the same problem of identifying a house from the water.

Present-day significance

Mass beach tourism from the 1960s built a new town around the old one rather than over it, which is why the historic centre survives essentially intact inside a modern resort.