San Michele Cemetery, Venice

Seen from the northern waterfront of Venice, San Michele is a low rectangle of pale brick walls with the dark spires of cypresses rising above them: an island given over entirely to the dead. It became the city's principal cemetery under Napoleonic rule, when a decree of 1807 ended burials within the crowded parishes of the historic centre; the first plan was drawn by Giannantonio Selva and the cemetery formally opened in 1813. In the 1830s the canal that separated it from neighbouring San Cristoforo della Pace was filled in, joining the two islands into the single enclosure seen today.

At the landing stands San Michele in Isola, designed by Mauro Codussi and begun in 1469, usually counted as the first Renaissance church in Venice. Its white Istrian stone facade, with a curved crown and crisp classical order, looks almost austere after the Gothic lace elsewhere in the city, and it set a pattern Venetian architects followed for decades. Inside the walls the cemetery is laid out in geometric fields and cloisters, divided by confession into Catholic, Orthodox and Evangelical sections. Land here has always been scarce, and for most Venetians burial is temporary: after some years remains are moved to ossuaries, a practice with deep roots in the lagoon. An extension designed by David Chipperfield, won in competition in 1998, added new courts and an ossuary in a restrained modern idiom.

For many visitors the island is a pilgrimage to the exiles and artists who chose to rest in Venice. In the Orthodox section Igor Stravinsky lies close to Sergei Diaghilev, whose grave is often strewn with ballet shoes left by admirers. The Evangelical enclosure holds the poets Ezra Pound and Joseph Brodsky, and the painter Emilio Vedova is buried here too. The atmosphere is quiet and domestic rather than grand: photographs on the niches, fresh flowers, gardeners at work, and the sound of boats beyond the wall.

Getting there

San Michele lies in the lagoon about 1.6 km north of central Venice, facing the Fondamente Nove waterfront in Cannaregio. The vaporetto lines 4.1 and 4.2 run from Fondamente Nove to the Cimitero stop, a crossing of a few minutes. The nearest airport is Venice Marco Polo Airport (VCE), about 6.5 km away across the lagoon.