SAN MICHELE IN ISOLA

Description

Essentials about San Michele in Isola in brief

People interested in churches and cemeteries should make their way to the island of San Michele during a visit to Venice, located halfway between the old city of Venice and the island of Murano. San Michele is home to the former Camaldolese monastery and the church of San Michele in Isola, the city’s first Renaissance church, as well as the largest cemetery in Venice.

The history of San Michele in Isola

On the site of the present church, on the still uninhabited island, St. Romuald is said to have lived as a hermit at the end of the 10th century. The earliest predecessor of the church, dated around this time, was the foundation of a wealthy patrician family. In 1212 the island was given to the Camaldolese Order, which built a new church and convent buildings there by 1221. These were profoundly restored around 1300, but after the middle of the 15th century they were again dilapidated and were demolished. The campanile was rebuilt in 1460 still in Gothic forms.

The construction of the rest of the building complex began in 1469, designed by the important master builder Mauro Codussi. It was his first commission in Venice and the first Renaissance church in the city. In 1530, next to the portal façade, at the northern tip of the island, the Cappella Emiliani was added as a mausoleum for the wealthy widow Margarita Vitturi Emiliani.

The monastery experienced periods of religious and cultural prosperity. In 1434, a religious college for theology, philosophy and ancient languages and literature was attached to it. At the time of its dissolution in 1810, the monastery library was one of the most important in the region, with 40,000 volumes, including valuable manuscripts and incunabula. The monk and cartographer Fra Mauro drew his famous world map here, one of the most important testimonies of the pre-Columbian world view.

After the conquest of the Republic of Venice by Napoleon in 1797, the Camaldolese monastery was abolished in 1810 and the island became state property. Then began its elaborate transformation into the new municipal cemetery, for which in 1837 it was connected by filling with the immediately neighboring island of San Cristoforo. The convent church of San Michele with its cloister and the Cappella Emiliani were preserved.

The sights of San Michele

The Church of San Michele in Isola

San Michele is an outwardly simple three-nave basilica. Inside, the naves are separated by slender columns and wide-span arches and bear coffered ceilings. All three open into a choir with a round apse. Above the main choir is a flat dome with a round tambour. It is separated inside by two choir arches, giving the impression of a square crossing. A spacious, richly decorated gallery is built into the west bay of the nave.

The portal façade facing west towards the lagoon, a characteristic design by Codussi that was new at the time, reveals a desire for representation. It is made of white Istrian Karst marble and reflects the three-aisle shape of the church. The central part is crowned by a semicircular arch, the lower sides close with leaned quarter circles. The surface is structured by entablatures and pilasters, a central round window and two slender round-arched windows.

The Campanile

The bell tower from 1460 made of unplastered brickwork is the only Gothic part of the ensemble. It rises freestanding next to the northern aisle on a square ground plan. Horizontal decorative friezes divide it into floors. An octagonal upper storey with a spherical helmet forms the finial.

The Cloister

The cloister, a slightly irregular square of four rows of arcades with 57 semi-circular arches, in the center of which stands a fountain, offers a picture of rare unity and tranquility.

The Cappella Emiliana

The Cappella Emiliana, an exemplary Renaissance mausoleum, is a hexagonal, clearly proportioned central building with a dome in Istrian stone built over a short tambour. The commission to build the chapel was given by the procurators of San Marco to the architect Guglielmo de’ Grigi d’Alzano in 1528. The construction was completed in 1543 by Mauro Codussi. The construction was financed by a donation of 1427 by Margherita Vitturi, widow of Giovambattista Miani (Emiliani). Therefore, the chapel is dedicated to Saint Margaret. Inside it is decorated with floors of precious geometric and colored marble incrustations and with stone relief altar retables.

The Cemetery of San Michele

In 1804 Napoleon forbade the burial of people on the main island of Venice for hygienic reasons. Given the facts that the city is built on stilts and is frequently hit by floods, a perfectly understandable decision. Gian Antonio Selva, the architect of the famous Teatro La Fenice, was commissioned in 1808 to design a cemetery on the island of San Michele. In 1813 the San Michele cemetery was “put into service”. The current structure of the cemetery was designed by architect Annibale Forcellini in 1860.

Due to the limited space available in the cemetery, graves are dissolved after a maximum of 20 years or after 99 years (if they are in family graves). Several celebrities are also buried in San Michele Cemetery, including Russian composer, pianist and conductor Igor Stravinsky and Austrian mathematician and physicist Christian Doppler.