Venice’s Cemetery on San Michele Island Tour

A cemetery on an island

We will visit the church of San Michele and walk through the fields of the monumental city's cemetery and hear the stories behind some of its famous tombs, while enjoying the peaceful and refreshing atmosphere.

The first Renaissance church in Venice

 San Michele church is considered one of the first examples of Renaissance architecture in Venice.

A Nobel prize poet

We will pay respect to the tomb of a Russian-American poet and essayist and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1987. This dissident-poet had been expelled from his Russian homeland in 1972 and moved to the United States. Anyway, he spent a long time in Venice, wrote a collection of mystical meditations on Venice called "Watermark" and decided to be interred in this watery city he once called “my version of Paradise.”

A controversial American poet

We will visit the tomb of an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a fascist sympathizer. For this reason, his name is nowadays used by a minor xenophobic and neo-fascist political movement in Italy.

Solertia Vincat

We will say thanks to a British diplomat who was ambassador to Italy and later the chairman of the "Venice in Peril Fund".  

The Argentinian football player resting here thanks to Queen Elizabeth

We will see how Queen of England solved some bureaucratic issues related to the tumulation of a famous argentine football player and manager, best remembered for his success with the Italian soccer team Inter in the 1960s.

Music is Venice. Venice is music

We will not miss the very simple tomb of a fmaous Russian composer, pianist, and conductor, widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century.

An "Informale" tomb

We will homage to a modern Italian painter, considered one of the most important in the "Arte Informale" artistic movement, whose masterpieces are now displayed at the Peggy Guggenheim collection.  

The afraid of water ballet impresario whose last travel was ironically by boat during his funeral

Sometimes life (and death) is ironic. We will see the tomb with the ballerina shoes of a Russian art critic, patron, ballet impresario and founder of the "Ballets Russes" in Paris, from which many famous dancers and choreographers would arise. David Chipperfield's cemetery extension: The guiding idea behind the scheme designed by Chipperfield is an organisational structure that uses courtyards of various sizes, that echo the fifteenth-century cloister of San Michele nearby. In contrast to the existing arrangement of tombs in rows, the scheme groups buildings, walls, tombs and landscape together, creating a sense of intimacy and enclosure.

David Chipperfield's cemetery extension

The guiding idea behind the scheme designed by Chipperfield is an organisational structure that uses courtyards of various sizes, that echo the fifteenth-century cloister of San Michele nearby. In contrast to the existing arrangement of tombs in rows, the scheme groups buildings, walls, tombs and landscape together, creating a sense of intimacy and enclosure. 

The psychiatrist who closed the mental hospitals

We will pass by the family tomb of an Italian psychiatrist, neurologist, professor, pioneer of the modern concept of mental health, and main proponent of the Law which abolished mental hospitals in Italy, considered to be the most influential Italian psychiatrist of the 20th century. 

Main monumental cemetery entrance

We will enoy the view to Venice from the former main monumental entrance of the cemetery.

Nuns, monks and people who served the army

We will cross the cemetery towards the San Cristoforo church, passing by the tombs of nuns, monks and people who served the army.