HOME DISCOVER VENETO VENICE VENICE AND THE LAGOON MINOR ISLANDS SAN SERVOLO

From monastic seat to pole of cultural excellence

Thus San Servolo has rewritten its own history. For over a millennium the island had housed a community of monks and nuns who found shelter here when old age or illness no longer allowed them to devote themselves to their normal activities. With the 1700s the dogado decreed that the facilities also be opened to the many wounded who flowed to Venice from the sites of clashes with the Turks. Then under Napoleonic rule San Servolo became a military hospital and later a psychiatric hospital (finally closed in 1978).

Recently the island has been recovered and has become a center for multicultural promotion. It is home to the International College of Ca' Foscari University, a detached section of the Venice Academy of Fine Arts and the Venice International University, among others.

San Servolo is open for private tours. It is possible to visit the Museum of the Asylum, which collects artifacts that belonged to the psychiatric hospital that was active on the island until 1978 (the tour also includes the nearby Church) and the beautiful park with its ancient trees (including a Canary Island palm tree , large American agave plants, a European linden tree, Aleppo pines, a centuries-old olive tree and ailanthus trees).

The island can be reached from Venice by vaporetto, line 20 from San Zaccaria.