VENICE, Italy — Venice’s San Michele island is the final resting place of American poet Ezra Pound, Russian composer Igor Stravinsky and many Venetians known only to their loved ones.

The city of Venice this year revived a long-dormant tradition of constructing a temporary bridge to allow Venetians to make the solemn 400-meter (quarter-mile) lagoon crossing by foot to pay respects to their dead on the Catholic All Souls’ holiday.

In its original form, the crossing was made out of Venetian “peata” boats lashed together, topped with walking planks and anchored to the lagoon bed. The practice was stopped in the 1950s, probably as more regular public water buses made the island easier to reach.

After an absence of some seven decades, the bridge was revived in 2019 with a modular pontoon con

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