The Campo Verano (Italian: Cimitero del Verano) is a
cemetery in
Rome,
Italy, founded in the early 19th century. The
monumental cemetery covers a surface area of 83 hectares which is currently divided into several sections: the main
Catholic cemetery, the
Jewish cemetery established in 1895,[1] a
Protestant section with its own entrance and a military section with monument to the victims of
World War I. [2]
History and description
The Verano (officially the "Communal Monumental Cemetery of Campo Verano") is located in the quartiereTiburtino of Rome, near the
Basilica di San Lorenzo fuori le mura. The name Verano refers to the ancient Roman Campo dei Verani that was located here. As evidenced by the existence of an earlier Roman necropolis dedicated to St. Ciriaca, the cemetery ground has been a burial place for at least twenty centuries. [3]
A modern cemetery was not established until the
Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy during 1807–1812, when the architect
Giuseppe Valadier was commissioned for designs after the
Edict of Saint-Cloud [
fr] required burials to take place outside of the city walls.[4] Although the cemetery was consecrated in 1835, the works continued during the pontificates of
Gregory XVI and
Pius IX, under the direction of
Virginio Vespignani who also built the cemetery church of Santa Maria della Misericordia (consecrated in 1860), along with the monumental entrance gate. The vast burial ground in an open-air museum setting is located on an undulating slope, dotted with majestic tombs in different styles, varying from
Neoclassical architecture to
Art Nouveau.
Enamel funerary portraits of the deceased painted on lava by Filippo Severati are worth seeing. [5] The papal authorities still have some control over the administration.[6]Pope Francis celebrated
All Saints Day Mass here on a papal visit to the cemetery on 1 November 2014.[7]
Notable burials
Note that plots are not necessarily perpetual concessions, and if the grant is not renewed, graves are recycled and remains are moved to an
ossuary or somewhere else. [8]
Walter Audisio (1909-1973), politician, partisan, and
executioner of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and his mistress, Clara Petacci *Lot: Zona ampliamento, riquadro 142, cappella F, fila 3, loculo n. 7*
Palmiro Togliatti (1893–1964), politician and partisan *Lot: Nuovo reparto, Famedio del PCI, riquadro 8 distinti*
Cyril Toumanoff (1913–1997), Russian-born American historian and
genealogist of Armenian-Georgian descent *Lot: cappella dei Cavalieri di Malta*
Giuseppe Ungaretti (1888–1970), modernist poet, journalist, essayist *Lot: Arciconfraternita, scalinata fronte riquadro 145, lotto 3, gradone 3, loculo n. 59*
Luigi Zampa, (1905–1991), film director and screenwriter *Lot: Rampa Caracciolo, fila IV, n. 50*
Riccardo Zanella (1875–1959), Fiuman politician, President of the
Free State of Fiume (1921–1924) *Lot: Gruppo I monumentale, cappella R, fila 5, loculo n. 4*
Israel Zolli (1881–1956), Jewish convert to Catholicism, professor, author *Lot: Nuovo reparto, riquadro 45, primo piano, galleria XIII*
21st century
Ferruccio Amendola, (1930–2001), film actor and voice actor *Lot: Bassopiano Pincetto, scaglione Tiburtino fila XI loculo A sotto gallerie 10/11*