2 Best Sights in San Michele, Venice

It's no surprise that serenity prevails on San Michele in Venice’s northern lagoon. The city's island cemetery is surrounded by ocher brick walls and laced with cypress-lined pathways amid plots filled with thousands of graves; there's also a modern extension completed by British architect David Chipperfield in 2017. Among those who have made this distinctive island their final resting place are such international arts and science luminaries as Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Diaghilev, Ezra Pound, and the Austrian mathematician Christian Doppler (of the Doppler effect). You're welcome to explore the grounds if you dress respectfully and adhere to a solemn code of conduct. Photography and picnicking are not permitted.

Tiny, cypress-lined San Michele is home to the first church designed by Mauro Codussi and the first example of Renaissance architecture in Venice; the gracefully elegant structure shows the profound influence of Florentine architects Alberti and Rossellino that would come to full fruition in Codussi's palaces on the Canale Grande. The church's dedication to St. Michael is singularly appropriate, since traditionally he holds the scales of the Last Judgment.

Next to the church is the somewhat later hexagonal Capella Emiliani (1528–1543), whose strangely shaped dome recalls those of Etruscan tombs.