San Michele in Isola - 30121

St Miguel is a badass

Great looking church

A special and enchanted place. An island where great people of the past and memories of many who have lived the lagoon city rest

Just passing by via boat

Stunning looking church on the cemetery island

Frumos. Merita vizitat. San Michele is an island in the Venetian Lagoon, northern Italy. It is associated with the sestiere of Cannaregio, from which it lies a short distance northeast. Along with neighbouring San Cristoforo della Pace, the island was a popular place for local travellers and fishermen to land. Mauro Codussi's Chiesa di San Michele in Isola of 1469, the first Renaissance church in Venice, and a monastery lie on the island, which also served for a time as a prison. San Cristoforo was selected to become a cemetery in 1807, designed by Gian Antonio Selva, when under French occupation it was decreed that burial on the mainland (or on the main Venetian islands) was unsanitary. The canal that separated the two islands was filled in during 1836, and subsequently the larger island became known as San Michele. Bodies were carried to the island on special funeral gondolas. Among those buried there are Igor Stravinsky, Joseph Brodsky, Jean Schlumberger, Christian Doppler, Frederick Rolfe, Horatio Brown, Sergei Diaghilev, Ezra Pound, Luigi Nono, Catherine Bagration, Franco Basaglia, Paolo Cadorin, Zoran Mušič, Helenio Herrera, Emilio Vedova, and Salvador de Iturbide y Marzán. The cemetery is still in use today.

One of the most romantic places in Venice is certainly the cemetery on the island of San Michele. Here is also the inaugural work of Mauro Codussi, an architect from Bergamo who settled in Venice in 1468. It was in that year that he opened and directed the construction site that radically changed the way of building in Venice, bringing Renaissance architecture to the Serenissima too. San Michele in Isola is a very interesting church, located on the Isola di San Michele, a small islet sited between Venice and Murano, which once sheltered a Camaldolese monastery ( Monastero di S. Michele di Murano ), but now houses the main cemetery of the city. The facade, made of Istrian stone and for its innovative features, unique of its kind by the architect Giorgio Orsini. The church is dedicated to Saint Michael (Roman Catholic), the holder of the scales on Judgement Day, a fit guardian of the sleep of the faithful dead. The church was consecrated in 1221 with attendance of Doge Pietro Ziani. The abbey at the site endured some tumults during the following centuries, most regarding dissents within the Camaldolese, however, it remained a major institution in Venice. The monastery played a leading role in the intellectual life of Venice. The Camaldolese theologian Angelo Calogera resided in this monastery in 1716–1724.The monk and cartographer, Fra Mauro, known for his map of the world dating to 1450, was associated with the monastery. Placido Zurla, also a monk at San Michele, wrote an account of the map, titled Il Mappamondo di Fra Mauro. At San Michele, Placido was to befriend the fellow Camaldolese, Mauro Cappellari, who later became Pope Gregory XVI. In 1810 the monastery was suppressed by the Napoleonic armies during his occupation of the Veneto. The monks continued their communal existence as the faculty of a college, till that too was dissolved in 1814. The community then transferred to Padua. At that point, many of the remaining monastic buildings were demolished, and the land began being used as a cemetery. Among those buried in this cemetery are Ezra Pound and Igor Stravinsky. The church was managed for a time by an order of Padri Reformati.

Adorable little church off to the corner of the island. Of your taking the water bus to Murano there isn’t a reason not to stop by the cemetery and the church. There is no charge to see any thing here. As of December 2021 a few of the rooms in the church are under construction, but I still got to see some beautiful things. At first glance it looked closed, but just open the door and walk right in. I did leave a couple euros in the donation box just to be l polite.