Protestant Cemetery, Rome
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Crane_Protestant_Cemetery.jpg
The Protestant Cemetery (Italian: Cimitero acattolico) in Rome, often called the English Cemetery, is near Porta San Paolo alongside the Pyramid of Cestius, a small-scale Egyptian-style pyramid built in 30 BC as a tomb and later incorporated into the section of the Aurelian Walls that borders the cemetery. Cypress trees and heavy foliage help this cemetery to mirror the more natural style of cemeteries seen in the lusher regions of Northern Europe. As the Italian name of the cemetery indicates, it is the final resting place of non-Catholics in general, not just Protestants, nor is it restricted by nationality.
The earliest known burial is that of an Oxford student named Langton in 1738. The most famous graves are those of the English poets John Keats (1795-1821) and Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822). Keats died in Rome of tuberculosis. His epitaph, which does not mention him by name, is by his friends Joseph Severn and Charles Brown: "This grave contains all that was mortal, of a YOUNG ENGLISH POET, Who on his Death Bed, in the Bitterness of his Heart, at the Malicious Power of his Enemies, Desired these Words to be engraven on his Tomb Stone: Here lies One Whose Name was writ in Water". Shelley drowned off the Italian Riviera and cremated on the shore near Viareggio. His ashes were interred in the Protestant Cemetery; his heart, which his friend Edward John Trelawny had snatched from the flames, was kept by his widow Mary until her death and buried with her in Bournemouth.
Other notable burials include:
- Hendrik Anderson (1872-1940), sculptor, friend of Henry James
- Karl Briullov (1799-1852), great Russian painter
- Gregory Corso (1930-2001), American beat generation poet
- Carlo Emilio Gadda (1893-1973), Italian novelist
- August von Goethe (1789-1830), son of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe; his monument features a medallion by Bertel Thorvaldsen
- Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937), Italian philosopher, leader of the Italian Communist Party
- Richard Saltonstall Greenough (1819-1904), American sculptor
- Wilhelm von Humboldt (1794-1803), son of the German diplomat and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt
- Hans von Maares (1837-1887), German painter
- Malwida von Meysenbug (1816-1903), German author
- Axel Munthe (1857-1949), Swedish physician and author
- Thomas Jefferson Page (1808-1899), commander of United States Navy expeditions exploring the Rio de la Plata
- Gottfried Semper (1803-1879), German architect
- Joseph Severn (1793-1879), English painter, consul in Rome, and friend of John Keats, beside whom he is buried
- Franklyn Simmons (1839-1913), American sculptor and painter
- William Wetmore Story (1819-1895), American sculptor, buried beside his wife under his own "Angel of Grief"
- John Addington Symonds (1840-1893), English poet and critic
- Lady Temple (died 1809), wife of Sir Grenville Temple, 9th Baronet
- Edward John Trelawny (1792-1881), English author, friend of Percy Bysshe Shelley, beside whose ashes he is buried
- Wilhelm Friedrich Waiblinger (1804-1830), German poet and biographer of Friedrich Hölderlin
External links
- Catalogue of gravestones and inscriptions (http://www.dkinst-rom.dk/protcem/)
- Cemetery website (http://www.protestantcemetery.it) (in Italian)