A twentieth-century elementary school on one of the emptiest islands of the lagoon, closed and left to fall apart, bought by the family behind Harry’s Bar to become part of Torcello’s one working hotel.
At a glance
The Scuola Vecchia – the “old school” – is a twentieth-century building on Torcello, roughly 125 square metres, that served as the island’s elementary school until Torcello’s population shrank to the point where it could no longer justify one. Left empty and increasingly ruinous, it stood as one more sign of an island that was once more populous than Venice itself and today counts a resident population in the dozens. In 2015 the Comune di Venezia put the building up for public sale; when no other buyer came forward at the asking price of €270,000, Arrigo Cipriani – of Harry’s Bar, and the family behind the nearby Locanda Cipriani – bought it, describing it as a ruin that was “already, in effect, part of the complex.”
Key facts
- Building: a 20th-century elementary school, approximately 125 square metres
- Sold by: the Comune di Venezia, by public auction, November 2015, at an asking price of €270,000
- Bought by: Arrigo Cipriani, of Harry’s Bar and the Locanda Cipriani
- Stated plan: restoration integrated with the Locanda Cipriani, as part of the family’s wider investment on Torcello
- Location: Torcello, Venetian Lagoon
- GPS: 45.49737, 12.41800 · Open in Google Maps
History
Torcello’s story is one of the lagoon’s sharpest reversals: settled before Venice itself, and for centuries its most populous and important centre, with a cathedral consecrated as early as 639 and, at its medieval peak, a population estimated in the tens of thousands. Malaria, silting waterways and the rise of Venice proper drained the island of people over the following centuries, until the twentieth-century community that remained was small enough that its elementary school – the building known today as the Scuola Vecchia – eventually closed for lack of pupils, left to the municipality and then to decay.
By 2015 the building was, in Arrigo Cipriani’s own description, a ruin, standing physically alongside the historic Locanda Cipriani – the inn and restaurant his family has run on Torcello since 1934, once a retreat for Ernest Hemingway among other regulars. When the Comune’s public sale drew no other bidders, Cipriani took it at the asking price, framing the purchase not as an expansion for its own sake but as a contribution to an island still fighting depopulation: “we want to make it now something beautiful, integrated with the Locanda’s ensemble.” Municipal planning rules limit what can be done with the structure — demolition without rebuilding, or conservative restoration, rather than a free redesign – and the family’s stated intention has been a restoration in keeping with the site.
Getting there
Torcello is reached by vaporetto line 9 from Burano, itself connected to Venice by the LN line from Fondamente Nove.
Sources
- La Nuova Venezia, A Cipriani l’ex scuola di Torcello (2015) — nuovavenezia.it: the building’s size, the 2015 public sale, the €270,000 asking price, Arrigo Cipriani’s purchase and stated restoration plans
- Il Gazzettino, on the wider Cipriani project for a small resort and spa on Torcello incorporating the former school building
- Coordinates cross-checked against OpenStreetMap Nominatim for Torcello
Photo gallery
Photographs contributed by a Cultural Heritage Online member. Note: these photographs show the building before its restoration; updated photographs are expected.
Find it on the map
See this place and what’s around it →Record researched and written by Carla Szathvary for Cultural Heritage Online, 2026.
📷 Become a Cultural Heritage Online photographer
Share your photos of places: they stay published under your name as the author. The more they're seen, the more you get noticed — and soon a contest will reward the most appreciated photos.
Log in or sign up free to add a photoIs this page about you?
This page is read by travellers and heritage enthusiasts who find it on Google. Tell us how you are connected to this place and we will take it from there.