Sant' Elena

The mostly artificial Isola di Sant'Elena is Venice at its remotest. The lack of little canals winding in and out and the recent date of most of its buildings make it seem like an Italian ‘Anywhere’ miraculously delivered from the national plague of automobilitis.

Long an open meadow in front of a church and convent, the island was a fashionable 19th-century retreat for Sunday picnics and promenades until the Austrians began to expand it for a military parade ground. In the early 20th century land reclamation, the island grew and blocks of flats took over all of the meadow, except for the crescent of the Parco delle Rimembranze.

At the very eastern end of the island, the lonely church of Sant’Elena is hemmed in by the walls of a sports field and a naval college. Venice picked up the body of Constantine’s mother Helen in the great 13th-century haul of Eastern booty. As one of the chief saints of the Eastern church, Helen’s relics merited their own church; the present Gothic version was designed by Giacomo Celega and built in 1435-39 for Olivetan monks.