Caorle historical timeline

Origins

The site was a Roman port, and later took in refugees from the mainland during the invasions of late antiquity, as the lagoon settlements further west did.

Turning points

Caorle became a bishopric early, and its cathedral was consecrated in 1038 -- a date that makes it one of the older surviving churches on this stretch of coast, and out of proportion to the size of the town it serves.

Influential people

Under Venice from the fourteenth century it remained a modest fishing and salt community, and the diocese was eventually suppressed as the town shrank.

Cultural evolution

Ernest Hemingway hunted duck in the Caorle lagoon in the winter of 1948, staying nearby; the Veneto lagoons and their casoni feed directly into Across the River and Into the Trees.

Present-day significance

The reclamation of the surrounding marshes in the twentieth century and the arrival of beach tourism from the 1960s changed the town completely -- from a village of a few thousand fishermen to a resort that takes hundreds of thousands of visitors a year.