which was largely controlled by Byzantium during that period.

The Black Death devastated the Venetian Republic in 1348 and again between 1575 and 1577. In three years, the plague killed some 50,000 people. In 1630, the Italian plague of 1629-31 killed a third of Venice's 150,000 citizens. A further serious issue for Torcello specifically was that the swamp area