San Giorgio Maggiore Island in the Canale della Grazia in Venice in northern Italy. San Giorgio Maggiore is a 16th-century Benedictine church, designed by Andrea Palladio, and built between 1566 and 1610. The first church on the island was built about 790, and in 982, the island was given to the Benedictine order by the Doge Tribuno Memmo. The Benedictines founded a monastery there, but in 1223, all the buildings on the island were destroyed by an earthquake