Just a few minutes from central Venice, on the way to the famous glassmakers' island of Murano, lies San Michele, the island cemetery of the city. Founded by an 1807 Napoleonic decree, it was composed of two small islands which were transformed into the Isle of the Dead, surrounded by brick ramparts and planted with cypress.
Today San Michele is home to funerary monuments of every type in a myriad of styles. While the beautiful early Renaissance church complex of San Michele in Isola enjoys its share of tourists, few venture into the adjacent cemetery, except perhaps to pay homage at the graves of Igor Stravinsky, Sergey Diaghilev, Ezra Pound, and Joseph Brodsky. It remains a place for quiet reflection and communion with the dead.