Cimitero Monumentale di Milano

By Geoff Plant

20 Mar 2013

Here a just a few of the grave stones --- tombs and crypts in the cemetery. We were shocked to be taken there at first but once you go inside and learn about the cemetery and its significance and history belonging to MILANO you can only walk around and marvel at its BEAUTY.Many of Milans rich and famous are buried there. As you walk around you can see old and new architecure amongst the graves

The Cimitero Monumentale ("Monumental Cemetery") is one of the two largest cemeteries in Milan, Italy, the one being the Cimitero Maggiore. The Monumentale is noted for the abundance of artistic tombs.

It was designed by the architect Carlo Maciachini (1818-1899). The structure was planned to consolidate a number of small cemeteries that used to be scattered around the city into a single location, at that time being removed from the central city area.

It opened in 1866 and since then has been filled with a wide range of both contemporary and classical Italian sculptures as well as Greek temples, elaborate obelisks, and other original works such as a scaled-down version of Trajan's Column. Many of the tombs belong to noted industrialist dynasties, and have been designed by renewed artists such as Giò Ponti, Arturo Martini, Lucio Fontana, Medardo Rosso, Giacomo Manzù, Floriano Bodini and Giò Pomodoro.

The main entrance is through the large Famedio, a massive Hall-of-Fame-like Neo-Medieval style building of marble and stone that contains the tombs of some of the city's and the country's most honored citizens, including that of novelist Alessandro Manzoni.

If you ever go to Milan this is a place well worth visiting