Convent of Isola San Francesco del Deserto

San Francesco del Deserto is an island in the Venetian Lagoon, with an extension of about 4 hectares, located between Sant'Erasmo and Burano. It houses a convent of minor friars, originally founded by St. Francis himself.

According to legend, St. Francis of Assisi landed there on his return from Egypt to escape a storm.

In 1808 the friars were forced to leave the island, which was transformed into a barracks, due to the Napoleonic suppression of religious orders.

The work returned to the Franciscan friars in 1858 and became a place of retreat and formation for young people in Franciscan life.

The natural environment where the monastic complex stands is incomparable and unique. More than a thousand trees, among pines and cypresses, surrounded by the mystical silence of the lagoon, make it a precious ecosystem that gives refuge to numerous resident and migratory birds.

For those who wish to spend a period of prayer in solitude for the purpose of research and religious reflection, 15 cells, 2 large rooms for study groups and a refectory are made available.

Frequented since Roman times, as evidenced by the discovery of some finds in the subsoil, the place, formerly called Isola delle Due Vigne, became in 1220 a landing place for Francis of Assisi, returning from the East and from the Fifth Crusade, where he was went to preach the gospel to the sultan and end the war.

The saint chose the island to found a shelter where it was possible to pray and meditate in peace, far from worldliness.

After his death, the island was donated, in March 1233, to the minor friars by the Venetian patrician Jacopo Michiel, a relative of the patriarch of Grado Angelo Barozzi, to found a convent there.

In the fifteenth century, the island and the convent were abandoned due to the environmental conditions that had become inhospitable, caused malaria, hence the term deserted, even if the abandonment lasted only a few decades.

The island was occupied by Napoleonic soldiers in 1806 who plundered the monastery and the church with ornaments and due to the suppression the community had to move to the monastery of San Bonaventura in Venice.

Subsequently the area was used as a powder magazine by the Austrians until in 1858 the land was donated to the patriarchate of Venice, which allowed the friars to refound the monastery, which is still active today.

On the occasion of the eight hundred years since the arrival of the saint from Assisi to the island and from the foundation of the monastery, exhibitions and interventions were organized with the aim of stirring public opinion about the maintenance of both places of prayer and nature, including the reportage made from the Giorgio Fornoni report.

Map: Convent of Isola San Francesco del Deserto