Italian cemeteries provide striking examples ofindigenous urban princi ples, positing discrete narratives of collective dwelling and civic form. The island cemetery of San Michele in Venice, for example, presents a wide range of urban possibilities, condensed within a walled "utopic" precinct. Villas, apartment buildings, streets, squares and gardens are arrayed for appreciation. More recently this urban metaphor has been examined in such works as The Modena Civic Cemetery by Aldo Rossi. Here the cemetery addresses the city and its future in full contemporary honesty. Stark perhaps, and even nihilistic, the project is striking in its clarity and power. Rossi's urban vision, articulating a space of silence and loss, may not be an optimistic one, but it is, perhaps, an accurate portrayal of our contemporary state. Yet other narratives of human futures exist, distinct from Rossi's post-humanistic city. Indeed different cemeteries present different stories, or different "cities" for reflec tion. The Brion Cemetery by Carlo Scarpa establishes one such contrasti ng narrative. In a subtle way the Brion Cemetery posits the presence of the mythological city, and its continuing presence within architectural thought. In doing so, the project reveals the narrative approach which operates within Scarpa's work, and its potential for expressing mythic concerns within architecture in general.