Venice carries an air of melancholy, drifting on waves to its surrounding islands. Among them, the most solemn is San Michele—a floating necropolis for over two centuries.

The island’s story begins in the 13th century, when monks dedicated a chapel here to Archangel Michael, after whom the island is named. By the 15th century, Mauro Codussi rebuilt the church after a fire, and it still stands, flanked by growing graves.

In the 19th century, Napoleonic reforms moved burials from Venice to islands like San Cristoforo. As numbers rose, the canal separating San Cristoforo from San Michele was filled, creating Venice’s only cemetery island.

Each morning, gondolas bring the departed to rest under dense cypress trees among the graves of Stravinsky and Ezra Pound. In 2019, I visited on a quiet December day. Amid Chipperfield’s grey basalt walls and serene courtyards, time itself seemed to pause, marked only by the steady drip of a fountain.