En fridfull oas i Testaccio: Den icke-katolska kyrkogården i Rom

Originaltext på engelska:

AN OASIS OF PEACE IN THE TESTACCIO DISTRICT: THE NON-CATHOLIC CEMETERY OF ROME

Behind the Pyramid of Cestius, in the heart of Rome, there is a special place: the Non-Catholic cemetery.

Today, as then, the land is close to two ancient monuments: the Pyramid of Caius Cestius (dating back to around 12 BC), and the Aurelian Walls (built in the 3rd century AD), which form the background of the Cemetary.

Also known as the Protestan Cemetery or the Cemetery of the Artists and Poets, here rest men and women of every race and country, of every language and age.

It is one of the oldest cemetery in Europe, still in use today. Since 1716, the date of the first burial, over 4000 people have found the place of their eternal rest here. Towards the end of the nineteenth century the cemetery assumed the dimensions and definition we see today. In 1918 it was declared a monumental area of national interest.

It is a sort of Italian Perè-Lachaise,and it is  born because the rules of the Papal State imposed the prohibition of burying “infidels” in consacreted land. Once the funeral cerimonies were held at night, to avoid manifestations of religious fanaticism, also because the area was not delimited by city walls – and it remained so until the nineteenth century – and vandal raids were not un common.

In the early 1700s, Pope Clement XI granted permission and land to bury some members of the Stuart Court in exile in Rome. This permission was later extended to other people of non-Catholic faith. One of the oldest tomb is that of an Oxford student, George Langford, buried here in 1716.

At the time of travels in Italy of romantic writers and poets, the non-Catholic cemetery of Rome was a stage of a sort of literary pilgrimage: it was visited by Goethe (who had his son buried here), Melville, Shelley, who in life expressed a reflection on how one could “fall in love with death at the tought of being buried in such a delightful place”. Henry James called it “A mixture of tears and smiles, of stones and flowers, of mourning cypresses and bright skies, which gives us t he impression of looking at death from the happier side of the grave”.

Obviously, there are many Protestant tombs, but there are also tombs of all other religious confessions such as the Orthodox, the Islamic, the Zoroastrian, the Buddhist. The inscriptions are in more than fifteen different languages.

Many famous people, writers, painters, sculptors, diplomats, scientists,and dancers., buried in this place of infinite peace.

The cemetery is divided into four areas.

In the area called “ancient zone”, we find in addition to the earliest eighteenth century tombs, also the burials of the English poets Percy B. Shelley and John Keats. Close to those, the one of a great friend and admirer of Keats, the painter and diplomat Arthur Severn. Not far away the burial of the Swedish painter Ruth Anna Maria Milles.

Moving on to the so-called “old zone”, we find the tombs of Jia Ruskaja, the Russian-Italian dancer and founder of the National Dance Academy in Rome, the Swedish painter Nils Jakob Olsson Blommer, but above all the poignant statue of the “Angel of Grief” sculpted by William W. Story (1819-1895) for the burial of his wife and that is now famous also thank to the cover of one of the band Evanescence’s EP.

Another particularly suggestive tomb is that of Elsbeth M.Wegener Passarge, a German girl who died misteriously on her wedding night and whose monument was created by her boyfriend, the scultpor Ferdinand Seeboeck (1864-1953). The figure of a girl, with an embroidered bodice and a veil on her head, rests on a real bed, covered by the sinuous folds of a sheet, with one hand on her chest in which someone slips flowers from time to time.

 There are also great Italian artists such as Andrea Camilleri, Carlo Emilio Gadda and Antonio Gramsci, figures who in a certain sense have led their lives feeling likeforeigners in their homeland.

The view of the Pyramid of Cestius, the presence of ruins and tombs inspired by classica antiquity, the prescence of cypresses and pines, and the absence of noise instill a sense of profound stillness in the visitor, who feels transported to another dimension, very far from the chaos of the city.

Written by: Ilaria Degl’Innocenti