There are places to have fun, other places to appreciate culture and others perfect to meditate and think. The Monumental Cemetery of Milan is for sure a perfect place to meditate as it condenses death and life together with the history of Milan since two centuries ago.
Many Milanese are always running and, with the excuse that it is pretty close, they never visited it. Yet this Cemetery has a true charm that has nothing to envy to the most popular monumental cemeteries around Europe such as the Parisian Père Lachaise or Lychakiv in Lviv, Ukraine.
Entering in that cemetery means to revive the era of the Italian Risorgimento, walking next to tombs of all those men who died during the nineteenth century battles or on the Karst and Ortigara rocks during First World War. It means being next to the remaining of who made the history of Milan and of Italy.
Here lays the popular writer Manzoni. There is also the Bocconi family and the inventor of the famous drink Campari. You can find many other names, known and less known, of the Milanese life. It means also to pay a tribute to the fallen in the extermination camps: inside an art workpiece there is an ampulla containing some earth coming from those fields. Visiting the Monumental Cemetery means to have the possibility to admire the sculptures of popular artists such as Adolfo Wildt, with his light and distressing style.
Sculptures around bring the visitor in an emotional crescendo that goes through many different statues. You will encounter many styles of it, from the small and modest ones to the tormenting and bigger ones.
Each statue has its own story to tell that deserves to be known and remembered.
Monumental Cemetery can be visited any time of the year with free entrance. On the City Council website following this link, you can find more information and download the Cemetery map with numbered the most important gravestones. This Monument and its sculptures are the perfect place to have a day dedicated to photography with all that infinite possible touching perspectives.
Milan charms you? Don’t miss the gallery that I dedicated to Milan or the post I wrote about one of the Adolfo Wildt’s statues which traces are visible also in the Cemetery.
© Franconiphotos.eu – All rights reserved.