San Giorgio in Alga is an island of the Venetian lagoon, northern Italy, laying between the Giudecca and Fusina (a frazione of Venice on the coast, near Marghera).
After a Benedictine monastery was founded about 1000 AD, more monasteries followed. In 1717, a fire burnt most of the buildings. Since 1799 there was a political jail, but nowadays the island is completely abandoned.
In the 15th century, Louis Barbo the canon regular of the abbey instituted reforms which were quickly adopted in other monasteries.[1] One of Barbo's reforms was to allow his monks to sleep in separate cells.[2]
The island was used in 1944 as a secret base for German military personnel training under the auspices of Italian Lt-Cmdr Wolk to master mine laying against Allied ships as free-diving frogmen. To avoid being discovered they only practiced at night.