Lagoon near the cemetery of San Michele

This story took place on November 29, 1904 in the waters of the Venetian lagoon, near the cemetery of San Michele. Francesco Quintavalle, the captain of the vessel "Pellestrina", going from Fondamenta Nove to Burano, decided to continue sailing despite zero visibility. A thick fog enveloped the lagoon, dusk descended, but the team, tired after a hard day, wanted to get to Burano at all costs. Ten minutes after the Pellestrina, two boats returning from Venice sailed in the same direction.

Then, according to the reports, the following happened. Having moved away from the cemetery, Quintavalle decided to change course and gave the order to slowly turn back. The gondolas were right behind the ship, and they were noticed too late. The Pellestrina split Antonio's gondolier's boat, the Red Landslide, in two: several people were able to cling to the wreckage and climb aboard the Pellestrina, but five passengers, all women, disappeared within seconds. The search began immediately and continued all night, despite the fog. A few hours later, one of the search boats came across the body of Tozo Maria Bull, who died of hypothermia a few minutes after discovery. In the morning, the bodies of other passengers were found: Leia Tozo Borella and Amalia Padovan Vistosi. Nevertheless, the bodies of two girls, Teresa Sandon and Josephine Gabrielle Carmelo, literally sank into the water.

Ten months later, in September 1905, Teresa Sandon was seen in a dream by her sister. The ghost asked to pray for her, "since her body remained a prisoner at the bottom of the canal, but prayer was supposed to free her soul." The awakened sister immediately went to church; and well, exactly ten days later, in the Bissa Channel, opposite the island of Vignolet, two fishermen found Sandon's body mutilated by a long stay in the water.

Josephine Gabrielle Carmelo was less lucky, she was never found: the girl's bones rest at the bottom of the lagoon, but her soul, according to gondoliers and drivers of Venetian vaporettos, found rest in a small coffin floating on the lagoon on foggy nights. According to the sailors themselves, the coffin is lit by four candles, so that it can be seen from a passing ship.