MONUMENTAL CEMETERY of STAGLIENO Sculptural Art in Genoa Between 1850 and 1950
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MONUMENTAL CEMETERY OF STAGLIENO sculptural art in Genoa between 1850 and 1950 ART AND CULTURE en from the left: Pantheon, Giuseppe Benedetto Badaracco Tomb, Ammirato Tomb “ONE OF THE WONDERS OF THE WORLd” to Realism, from Symbolism to Art E. Hemingway Nouveau and Art Deco. Do not be HOW TO GET TO Staglieno surprised if you find inscribed on By car: Exit Motorway A12, tollbooth The Monumental Cemetery Since its inception, prominent figures many of the monuments the names of Genova Est, then follow the signs to of Staglieno has often been such as Nietzsche, Maupassant, Mark sculptors of national and international the cemetery. Twain, Empress Sissi of Austria and renown such as Santo Varni, Giulio By bus: Lines 12, 13, 14 (Stops: called an open air museum due Hemingway have visited Staglieno and Monteverde, Augusto Rivalta, Lorenzo Piacenza1/Cimitero Staglieno or to the concentration of works have left behind recollections of their and Luigi Orengo, Leonardo Bistolfi, Piacenza2/Resasco), 34 (Stops: by great artists and architects walks along the monumental arcades, Demetrio Paernio, Edoardo De Albertis, Piacenza1/Cimitero di Staglieno or who worked to build the eternal or among the tree-lined paths on the Eugenio Baroni and many others. Resasco/Last stop), 48, 480 and 482 hill behind the Pantheon. (Stop: Istria3/Ponte Monteverde). resting places of the Genoese Each has mentioned how impressed History By train: Brignole station and then and foreigner alike. and fascinated they felt by these The idea to build a monumental by bus. places that combine public and cemetery for the city followed the By plane: By Volabus to Brignole private memories, in a unique fusion of decree by King Carlo Alberto of station and then by bus. INFORMATION monuments, sculptural art and romantic 1832 (which in turn was inspired by nature. Napoleon’s Edict of Saint-Cloud of GETTING AROUND INSIDE Address: Piazzale G.B. Resasco 2 Today, as then, you can still immerse 1804), which forbade burials inside THE cemetery OF Staglieno Ph. 010/87 01 84 - 010/87 01 85 yourself in an atmosphere that seems the city walls, churches and parish Given the size of the Cemetery and, in Fax 010/81 59 60 to have remained unchanged for two cemeteries for public health reasons. some cases, the significant difference in Opening hours: Mon-Sun 7:30 - centuries, characterised by a profound In 1835 its design was entrusted to height between the entrance and the 17:00 (last admission at 16:30) silence and the play of lights and the Genoese architect Carlo Barabino, areas on the hill, inside there are two Closed on 1 and 6 January; shadows that change with the seasons. who had already produced neo- convenient AMT shuttle bus lines Easter Monday; 2 and 24 June; Take your time and admire how art classical works for the city such as the (Ph. 848 000 030): 15 August; 8 and 26 December celebrates not only the history and the Teatro Carlo Felice and the adjacent CF - from the western entrance, along Open only in the morning: culture of the Genoese bourgeoisie Palazzo dell’Accademia. The planned the Veilino River to the Incinerator Easter and Christmas 7:30 - 13:00 in its ascendancy, from the early neoclassical structure was respected (Forno Inceneritore); (last admission at 12:30) nineteenth century until the tragic by Giovanni Battista Resasco, who CS - from the western entrance, along Only vehicles with a special events of the World Wars, but all of Italy. continued the work after his master’s the Veilino River, through the English permit can access the cemetery. During this interesting walk you can death, which occurred prior to the Cemetery and Boschetto Irregolare Contact the Offices for the issue of observe the artistic languages from approval of the project in 1840. (grove), to Campo delle Rose (rose field) a permit. over a century, from Neoclassicism The cemetery was opened to the public (behind the semicircular gallery). 2 art AND culture 3 from the left: Eastern Lower Arcade, Gorlero Tomb, Celesia Tomb below: Ferrari Tomb in 1851, although work continued Resasco managed to harmoniously The Cemetery of Staglieno for a long time afterwards and was combine the “Mediterranean” and in Literature A COMMON Heritage completed only around 1880. “Anglo-Saxon” cemetery type: the first In his novel-travelogue “Innocents The Cemetery of Staglieno is part Even today the visitor who enters is more architectural and monumental, Abroad, or The New Pilgrim Progress” of the Association of Significant through the main entrance is hit by while the second has a more naturalistic (London, 1869) the American writer Cemeteries in Europe (ASCE), a strong sensation caused by the structure. For this reason, since its Mark Twain recalls his experience in the a non-profit organisation that perfect combination produced by opening Staglieno has distinguished itself cemetery of Staglieno and reports the comprises over 150 cemeteries the architectural complex designed as a reference model in Italy and abroad. strong emotions that it conveyed: of historical or artistic importance, by Barabino with the naturalistic “Our last sight was the cemetery (a with the intention of promoting aspect designed by Resasco. In The Development burial place intended to accommodate European cemeteries as a its magnificence the Pantheon sits Parallel to the growth of Genoa, 60,000 bodies), and we shall continue fundamental part of world heritage. above a series of porticoes (termed the cemetery also continued to to remember it after we shall have http://www.significantcemeteries.org “porticati inferiori / lower arcades”), expand, resulting in changes to the forgotten the palaces. It is a vast marble while it is surrounded by another project already under construction. colonnaded corridor extending around A ROUTE succession of porticoes (termed the In the 1860s Resasco designed the a great unoccupied square of ground; THat UNITES EUROPE “porticati superiori / upper arcades”) semicircular arcade to the east, which its broad floor is marble, and on every Since 2010 Staglieno has been all connected by a monumental also became a monumental gallery, slab is an inscription - for every slab included in the European staircase. This huge stage is set while in the 1890s extensions were covers a corpse. On either side, as one Cemeteries Route, designed against a background designed for the area dedicated to walks down the middle of the passage, by the Council of Europe within of flourishing, other religions and for the English are monuments, tombs, and sculptured the project of the Cultural Routes sometimes wild cemetery, with a typically naturalistic figures that are exquisitely wrought and of Europe to promote the value vegetation, with style. In the early twentieth century are full of grace and beauty. They are of funeral art in European culture a scattering there was an expansion new and snowy; every outline is perfect, as a tourist attraction, providing of chapels and to the west with the every feature guiltless of mutilation, itineraries and information monuments. Galleria Montino, rich flaw, or blemish; and therefore, to us and devising educational in Art Deco works, the these far-reaching ranks of bewitching initiatives. First World War Memorial forms are a hundred fold more lovely http://www.cemeteriesroute.eu (1930s) and the Porticato than the damaged and dingy statuary Sant’Antonino, which they have saved from the wreck of was concluded in the ancient art and set up in the galleries of 1950s. Paris for the worship of the world.“ 4 art AND culture 5 from the left: Molinari Tomb, Casella Tomb, Giuditta Varni Tomb below: Lavarello Tomb But Twain was not the only one who two great quadrangles and extend and bootlace precisely reproduced... / The sea where young Columbus wanted to leave a record of his thoughts along the terraced hillside beginning There are tableaux almost vivants in dreamed new worlds, / See what they and emotions. The English writer Evelyn with the strong echo of Canova and which marble angels of consolation chiseled: “Contessa Navigato / Implora Waugh, a century later, when the purity ending in a whisper of Mestrovic emerge from bronze gates to whisper eterna quiete”. and perfection that impressed Twain and Epstein. They are of marble and to the kneeling bereaved. In one group were no longer present, cannot help bronze, massively and intricately there is a double illusion; a marble but praise the monumentality and contrived. Draped and half-draped mother lifts her child to kiss the marble artistic value of Staglieno, elevating it to figures symbolic of mourning and bust of his father. In the 1880s the STONES TO BE REDISCOVERED a “bourgeois museum” of nineteenth- hope stand in unembarrassed intimacy hand of art nouveau softens the sharp Within the project “Staglieno century art in his “A Tourist in Africa” with portrait-sculptures of uncanny chiselling. There is nothing built after 2000”, the City of Genoa and (London, 1960): realism. There stand the dead in the 1918 to interest the connoisseur. It is as the University created the “In Genoa for more than a hundred changing fashions of a century, the men a museum of mid-nineteenth-century School of Stone Restoration years professional and mercantile whiskered, frock-coated, bespectacled, bourgeois art in the full, true sense, that aimed at training highly skilled families competed in raising purely the women in bustles and lace shawls the Campo Santo of Genova stands professionals, specialised in the domestic temples. They stand round and feathered bonnets, every button supreme. If Père la Chaise and the study, preservation and restoration Albert Memorial were obliterated, the of funerary monuments and other loss would be negligible as long as this works of art. great repository survives.” GUIDED VISITS Staglieno is also mentioned in the One week-end a month the City “Spoon River Anthology” (1915), a of Genoa organises free guided collection of poems by the American tours to learn about the Cemetery Edgar Lee Masters, translated into of Staglieno in the company of an Italian by Fernanda Pivano and which expert guide.