San Michele in Isola is a Roman Catholic church in Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

, northern Italy, located on the Isola di San Michele

Isola di San Michele

San Michele is an island in the Venetian Lagoon, northern Italy.Originally a prison island, Napoleon's occupying forces decreed that Venetians could not bury their deceased on any of the main Venetians islands, but only on San Michele...

 which houses the cemetery of the city. It was rebuilt from 1469 onwards and is dedicated to Saint Michael, the holder of the scales on Judgement Day, a fit guardian of the sleep of the faithful dead.

The first church known to have been designed by the architect Mauro Codussi

Mauro Codussi

Mauro Codussi was an Italian architect of the early-Renaissance, active mostly in Venice. The name can also be spelt Coducci. He was one of the first to bring the classical syle of the early renaissance to Venice to replace the prevalent Gothic style.Born near Bergamo about 1440, he is first...

, this is a reconstruction of an older church, that was commissioned by the Camaldolese

Camaldolese

The Camaldolese monks and nuns are part of the Benedictine family of monastic communities which follow the way of life outlined in the Rule of St. Benedict, written in the 6th century...

 community on the island in 1469. The church is built entirely in salt-white Istrian stone

Istrian stone

Istrian stone, pietra d'Istria, the characteristic group of building stones in the architecture of Venice and Dalmatia, is a dense type of impermeable limestones that was quarried in Istria, between Portorož and Pula....

 which weathers to a pale gray. San Michele is the first example of Renaissance architecture

Renaissance architecture

Renaissance architecture is the architecture of the period between the early 15th and early 17th centuries in different regions of Europe, demonstrating a conscious revival and development of certain elements of ancient Greek and Roman thought and material culture. Stylistically, Renaissance...

 in Venice, with a facade that already shows the influence of Leon Battista Alberti. The strongly delineated masonry courses of the ashlar

Ashlar

Ashlar is prepared stone work of any type of stone. Masonry using such stones laid in parallel courses is known as ashlar masonry, whereas masonry using irregularly shaped stones is known as rubble masonry. Ashlar blocks are rectangular cuboid blocks that are masonry sculpted to have square edges...

 facade are carried right across the Ionic pilasters, a strikingly unusual feature for which that R. Lieberman could only find an earlier parallel in Bernardo Rossellino

Bernardo Rossellino

Bernardo di Matteo del Borra Gamberelli , better known as Bernardo Rossellino, was an Italian sculptor and architect, the elder brother of the sculptor Antonio Rossellino...

's Palazzo Piccolomini, Pienza, also of the 1460s, and also produced in an Albertian milieu. The design was influential in Venice. When it was finished, a monk of the community wrote, "The facade, now complete and perfect, shiner of such a beauty so that it turns in itself the light of the eyes of all those who walk or sail by".

The interior has a nave and two aisles, with precious decorations.

Next to the main façade is the Cappella Emiliani (1530). On the other side is the cloister of the 15th century, through which the cemetery can be reached.