Positioned between Murano and central Venice, the cemetery island of San Michele is a fascinating place for a stroll.
Cimitero di San Michele is still a functioning graveyard, and Venetians are constantly dropping by to spend time with their loved ones. Famous names are among the thousands buried here, and there’s a Romanesque cloister and Renaissance church to explore.
Former Monastery
This unusual island cemetery is proof that not all of Napoleon's reforms were bad. Prior to 1807, Venetians were buried in plots attached to their parish churches – not an ideal solution in a watery city.
Before then, San Michele had been home to a community of Camaldolese monks for 700 years. You can now wander through their cloister and, on weekday mornings, visit their church. Completed in 1478, the Chiesa di San Michele in Isola was the first Renaissance-style church to be built in Venice. Inside, there are impressive carved wooden ceiling bosses, but the architecture is best admired from the vaporetto to Murano.
Graves
San Michele's most famous burials are in the walled Greco (Orthodox) section. Here you'll find the simple white marble slabs marking the resting places of composer Igor Stravinsky and his wife Vera. Nearby, the grave of Ballets Russes founder Sergei Diaghilev is easy to spot by the ballet slippers continually left on it. Poets Ezra Pound and Joseph Brodsky are in the neighboring Evangelico (Protestant) section.
Beyond here is a striking set of contemporary concrete-and-basalt burial courtyards designed by David Chipperfield.
