At Campo Verano, Rome’s most exclusive cemetery, the dead keep office hours. Although the grounds are open between 7:30 AM and 6:00 PM, formal mourning is allowed only at set times. Visitors must enter on foot, unless obtaining a permit for age or handicap. Limited access and strict protocol reflect the cemetery’s cachet.
Tour guides call the Verano Rome’s “ultimate district.” People are dying to belong. Located on the Via Tiburtina near the Church of San Lorenzo outside the city’s eastern wall, the necropolis resembles a gated community. It features unified streets and avenues, neoclassical statues and monuments, and perfectly manicured lawns. Cypresses guard and shade its 20-foot high walls.
Rome did not always segregate the dead from the living. For most of its history, the two mingled. Ancient pagans buried relatives in the kitchen or cremated and kept their ashes in the parlor. Early Christians used catacombs only when they were an underground sect. Once their faith had triumphed, they converted houses of worship into family crypts. Basilicas were for the affluent and important, simple parishes for the hoi polloi. Marble floor slabs in old churches are usually tombstones, the inscription smoothed and made illegible by time.
Napoleon abolished this custom, for olfactory and hygienic reasons. On September 5, 1806, the French emperor implemented the Edict of Saint-Cloud in Italy. All burials, the law stated, must occur outside city walls. Furthermore, to promote democracy, all monuments for the dead must be the same size and their inscriptions regulated by a special committee. This fiat overturned centuries of tradition. Ugo Foscolo, in an ode, protested the violation of Italy’s sepulchers. Pius VII sought a practical solution for the Papal States.
To comply with Napoleon’s ordinance, the Pope proposed designating and blessing a field outside of Rome. The church would consecrate the ground, but the civil authorities would administer the burials. But where, asked city prefects and canon lawyers, should this holy field, this camposanto, be? As former Bishop of Tivoli, Pius suggested a tract beside the ancient consular road leading to his old diocese. Containing catacombs, this field once belonged the Verani, a senatorial family from the time of the Republic, hence its name Campo Verano.
Giuseppe Valadier drafted the blueprints and broke ground between 1807 and 1812. The cemetery, however, was not consecrated until 1835. Work continued during the papacies of Gregory XVI and Pius IX, under the supervision of Virginio Vespignani. Further construction was performed, even after Rome became the capital of United Italy, but the wall was unfinished. Cows, goats, and sheep snuck through the gaps and pastured among the dead. Scandalized relatives unburied them at night and smuggled the remains back to their parishes.
Respectability came in the late 19th century. King Umberto, an incorrigible Philistine, praised the Verano’s kitschy architecture. The main entrance with its three openings, rendered even more imposing by four large statues depicting Meditation, Hope, Charity, and Silence, precedes a large, four-sided portico. The mausoleums, some built like Art Nouveau villas, are decorated with climbing ivy, truncated pillars, bronze flower urns, and stained glass.
Everyone wants to be buried here, if only to socialize with celebrities. Silvio Spaventa, the great statesman, clears dirt from his throat and continues a speech: “Ma tornare a Bomba!” Alessandro Moreschi, the last surviving castrato, squeaks Gounod’s “Ave Maria.” Marcello Mastroianni, who needs no introduction, smooths his dinner jacket, lights a cigarette, and traces circles of smoke in the air. Glory may be fleeting, but status is eternal.
Unfortunately, demand has caused overcrowding. To accommodate new generations of the dead, Campo Verano must evict old tenants. From time to time, the tombs are opened. Workmen enter, remove the cadavers (now rags and bones) from their coffins, place them in much smaller zinc containers, and then label and stack them in ranks along the walls. Once the coffins are gone, space is free for new arrivals, provided the Department of Antiquities and Fine Arts approves.
These indignities do not disturb the dead. Their ceramic images, embedded beside their chiseled names on vertical slabs of shiny black Carrara, are as resigned as passport photos. The living, however, sigh and shake their heads. Is the sleep of death less heavy, they ask, beneath the shade of cypresses or within a sculptured urn?
Obviously not.
Pasquino’s secretary is Anthony Di Renzo, professor of writing at Ithaca College. You may reach him at direnzo@ithaca.edu.
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