The history of Jesolo
Origins
Equilo comes from equus=town, the Latin word for horses, and according to transcriptions as well as Equilio, Esquilio, Esulo, Lesulo, Jexollo and today Jesolo have its ancestry in the times of the Roman Empire as vicus, meaning village, on an isle close to the mouth of the Piave River: comerciants of those times used it in their sea journeys in the interior of the lagoon, in the winter season, protected from winds (the Bora) and storms, on the way from Ravenna, harbor where the grain of the 9th Augustean Region called Aemilia was embarked, to the great town-fortress Aquileia, rampart of the Eastern Roman border.
Uncovered in the front of the incessant barbaric invasions, which started in the 5th Century, part of the unaided people of Oderzo, Altino and of the vicinities of Treviso and Belluno, in their getaway, escaping along the river Piave, decide Jesolo as last shelter.
The first Doges and the war between Jesolo and Eraclea
When the Roman Empire fell, Jesolo together with other cities in the Venetian estuary, like Rialto, Eraclea, Burano, Caorle , Brondolo, Cavarzere, Chioggia, Malamocco, Torcello, Murano, Fine, Fossone, Grado and San Pietro in Volta, continue with no political direction, forming a congregation and creating an independent government and choose in 697 as top of the government Paoluccio Anafesto, the famous and unforgettable first Doge; they had the capital at Civitas Nova (Eraclea) placed in the center of the Venetiarum Commune. The inhabitants of Jesolo could hardly stand that the government had its seat in Eraclea, as they considered the origins their town more important and more ancient, and asked without success to become seat of the Doge. When the Eraclean Doge, Orso Teodato, moved in 742 the centre of the power to Malamocco, which granted the interposition of a large expanse of water, in order to have more security from an inner and outer point of view, and to keep a distance from the enemy Equilio, the complaint towards the Eraclean Doges grew.
In 755 Galla from Equilio encroached on the power of the Doge and briefly rose the fortune of the town; he was removed from his office by Domenico Monegario from Malamocco who, at his turn, undergo the same fate and the supreme authority went into the hands of an Eraclean family, the Gabbai, who kept the power for almost half a century.
In 804 Equilio with Malamocco managed to defeat the old enemy but could not rise itself. The Tribune Obelerio from Malamocco, proclamed Doge by the Frank partisans escaped to Treviso (in the small newborn State there were those who took the side of the Bizantines and those the one of the Franks according to their own interests), with the help of the inhabitants of Equilio forced the Gabbai to escape and dismantled Eracliana, centre of the Bizantine party. But at the arrival of the ships coming from Costantinople in support of their friends, commanded by Niceta in 807 and by Ebersapio in 809, Obelerio and his son, who shared the power with his father, had to escape and choose exile; the principality went back into the hands of an Eraclean, Agnolo Partecipazio [Particiaco].
The following year the fleet of the Franks, commanded by Pipino son of Charlemagne, invaded the lagoons and damaged every centre except Rialto, a safe rampart and Rialto itself became in 810 seat of the government and Equilio and Eracliana went to the background like all other small centres. (G. Pavanello, L´Antica Jesolo e la moderna Cava Zuccherina, in L´illustrazione Veneta, n. 9, anno 1927).
