San Michele, nicknamed The Island of the Dead, is the cemetery island of Venice. A cemetery is a place in which dead bodies and cremated remains are buried. Venice ( Italian: Venezia, Venetian: Venesia or Venexia) is a city in Northern Italy, the capital of the It is associated with the sestiere of Cannaregio from which it lies a short distance north east. A sestiere (plural sestieri) is a subdivision of a number of Italian towns for the origin and application of the word and examples of these towns see Sestiere. Cannaregio is one of the six historic sestieri (districts of Venice, and the northernmost of the city

Walls of San Michele.

Along with neighbouring San Cristoforo della Pace, the island was a popular place for local travellers and fishermen to land. A fisherman or fisher is someone who gathers Fish, Shellfish, or other animals from a body of water Mauro Codussi's Chiesa di San Michele in Isola of 1469, the first Renaissance church in Venice, and a monastery lie on the island. Mauro Codussi (1440 - 1504 was an Italian architect of the early- Renaissance, active mostly in Venice. San Michele in Isola is a church in Venice Italy, located on the island with the same name housing the cemetery of the city The Renaissance (from French Renaissance, meaning "rebirth" Italian: Rinascimento, from re- "again" and nascere

San Cristoforo was selected to become a cemetery in 1807, designed by Antonio Selva, when under French occupation it was decreed that burial on the mainland was unsanitary. Year 1807 ( MDCCCVII) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common The canal that separated the two islands was filled in during 1836, and subsequently the larger island became known as San Michele. Year 1836 ( MDCCCXXXVI) was a Leap year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian Calendar (or a Leap The island briefly doubled as a prison, but it is the now-closed section of the cemetery which is famous. A prison, penitentiary, or correctional facility is a place in which individuals are physically confined or interned and usually deprived of a range of Bodies were carried to the island on special funeral gondolas, including Igor Stravinsky, Joseph Brodsky, Sergei Diaghilev, Ezra Pound, Luigi Nono and Zoran Mušič. A Gondola is a traditional Venetian rowing Boat. Gondolas were for centuries the chief means of transportation within Venice and still have Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (Игорь Фёдорович Стравинский) ( &ndash 6 April 1971 was a Russian born Composer, considered by many to Joseph Brodsky ( May 24, 1940 — January 28, 1996) born Iosif Aleksandrovich Brodsky (Иосиф Александрович Бродский Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev (Серге́й Па́влович Дя́гилев / Sergei Pavlovich Dyagilev) also referred to as Serge, ( March 31, Ezra Weston Loomis Pound ( Hailey, Idaho Territory, United States October 30 1885 – Venice, Italy November 1 1972 was an American Expatriate Luigi Nono ( January 29, 1924 – May 8, 1990) was an Italian Avant-garde Composer of Classical music Zoran Mušič ( February 12 1909 - May 25 2005) was a Slovene painter. Other attractions include the Cappella Emiliana chapel.

The cemetery is still in use today. However, due to shortage of space, as is the custom in many European countries, after a few years the dead are exhumed and stored in compact concrete ossuary boxes in another part of the cemetery. An ossuary is a chest building well or site made to serve as the final resting place of human skeletal remains

The island viewed from the Vaporetto

External links

• Satellite image from Google Maps
• Written in Stone - Burial locations of literary figures.