The Certosa Monumental Cemetery


History

The San Girolamo della Certosa monastery cloisters and grounds became the city cemetery from 1801, even before Napoleon's Edict of St Cloud enforced burial outside city walls.

The first burials were in the central 16th century cloister, and monuments from suppressed churches came here too, but work adapting and building followed, initially in a neo-classical style. The chief architect, from 1811 was Ercole Gasparini, Professor of Architecture at the Bologna Academy. The Sala della Pietà with its elliptical staircase dates from the earliest period of adaptation. Gasparini also built a long portico linking the cemetery with the flat section of the famous portico of San Luca, joining it at the Meloncello Arch. The first stone was laid in 1811 and in 1818 the large Guidi Arch was built over via Sant'Isaia, but it was demolished in 1934 due to increased traffic. The line of the portico was broken in 1926 by the Torre di Maratona, built as an entrance to the Littoral sports complex, itself conceived to provide the backdrop for fascist celebrations.

From 1816 to 1834 the main galleries were built: in 1816 the Sala delle Tombe; in 1833, the Loggiato delle Tombe and then the Sala Gemina and the Colombario with its three naves, inspired by Roman thermal architecture. The building of the Elliptical Hall, a small space to connect the 19th and 20th-century halls followed 1834. In 1860 the previous Chapel of the Suffrages was turned into the Gallery of Angels followed by the Three-Aisled Gallery connecting the structures built until then. At the start of the 20th century the 6th cloister, with the World War I memorial, and the 8th and 9th cloisters were built.

The local tradition of frescos, terracotta and stucco decoration held sway during the first 15 years, but sculpture soon took over, all supervised by the Academy with, after 1815, all designs for monuments having to be submitted to a committee of academicians for approval.

The discovery of an Etruscan tomb here, during work to extend the cemetery, resulted in major excavation work, uncovering the Etruscan necropolis of Felsina in 1869, which had been in use from the 6th to the 3rd centuries BC. This leading to the founding of the Museo Civico Archaeologico in 1881, mostly to house the items found here.

The spectacular galleries and decorated family tombs of the local nobility, concentrated in the old cloister, got the cemetery a reputation as an open-air museum from very early on, and a necessary stop-off on Italian grand tours -  Byron, Leopardi, Dickens, Sigmund Freud and Stendhal were notable visitors who wrote about their visits. 

Amongst the poets, politicians and painters buried here are the singers Farinelli and Lucio Dalla, artists Mauro and Gaetano Gandolfi and Giorgio Morandi, the composer Respighi and motor manufacturers Alfieri Maserati and Ferruccio Lamborghini.

Cemetery opening times
Summer (from 1/3 to 2/11)
7.00am to 6.00pm
Winter (from 3/11 to 28/02)
8.00am to 5.00pm

The Certosa Cemetery website

The Museo Civico del Risorgimento website
of which the cemetery is part.

 











 





 

 













 







 



The Bisteghi Monument of 1891, by Enrico Barberi, who studied at the
Bologna Academy and with (our fave) Dupré in Florence.





 

 






 

 





 







 


                 

 



The Memorial to the Partisans

 

 



 

 





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