  (abridged) The ESIS survey is the optical follow up of the SWIRE/Spitzer in
the ELAIS-S1 region of the sky. In the era of observational cosmology, the main
efforts are focused on the study of galaxy evolution and its environmental
dependence. Wide area, multiwavelength, extragalactic surveys are needed in
order to probe sufficiently large volumes, minimize cosmic variance and find
significant numbers of rare objects. We present VIMOS I and z band imaging
belonging to the ESIS survey. A total of ~4 deg2 were targeted in I and ~1 deg2
in z. More than 300000 galaxies have been detected in the I band and ~50000 in
the z band. Object coordinates are defined within an uncertainty of ~0.2 arcsec
r.m.s., with respect to GSC 2.2. We reach a 90% average completeness at 23.1
and 22.5 mag (Vega) in the I and z bands, respectively. On the basis of IRAC
colors, we identified galaxies having the 1.6 um stellar peak shifted to z=1-3.
The new I, z band data provide reliable constraints to avoid low-redshift
interlopers and reinforce this selection. Roughly 1000 galaxies between z=2-3
were identified over the ESIS ~4 deg2, at the SWIRE 5.8 um depth (25.8 uJy at
3sigma). These are the best galaxy candidates to dominate the massive tail
(M>1e11 Msun) of the z>2 mass function.
