ART. — Already during the Middle Ages, besides within churches, the dead were buried in sacred enclosures such as the quadriporticos in front of sacred buildings, the cloisters of monasteries, or in any case in specific areas of land set aside for this purpose. Of these places, many of which, especially abroad, are still in use or held in particular honor, the best known is the Camposanto of Pisa, begun in 1278 by Giovanni di Simone, whose construction and decoration continued until well beyond the mid-15th century. The Pisan Camposanto consists of a quadriportico with arcades that encloses a rectangular area where a large quantity of earth was deposited, earth that Pisan sailors had collected on Golgotha. Notable for the tombs of the city’s most illustrious men, many of which are formed from ancient sarcophagi by renowned masters of sculpture, the Pisan Camposanto owes its greatest fame to the pictorial cycles of the 14th and 15th centuries that adorn its walls and which the recent war has partly and severely damaged. However, during the 18th century the custom of burying within churches or, in any case, within inhabited areas was gradually abandoned until legislative measures intervened to prohibit it as harmful, especially to public health.
Thus the first monumental nuclei began to appear, and in many cases, especially in large urban centers, by the mid-19th century architecture was directly engaged in improving the decorum of these constructions.
Thus in Milan, in the cemetery opened in 1866 after the suppression of the five small cemeteries that existed, a notable Famedio (Maciachini) was built to house the ashes of illustrious men. In it, which is one of the most noble examples of such monumental complexes, the decoration fused Lombard and late-Byzantine elements into a grand and harmonious whole. In Brescia an elegant lighthouse (Rodolfo Vantini) rose in the center of the area, and especially outside Italy provisions were made for park-like layouts that offered a greater sense of serenity and spiritual repose.
Within the scope of large perimeter constructions, smaller buildings later arose to house the tombs of a family or of individuals, down to the modest niches or cells for the less well-off.
A typical example is provided by the cemetery of the Verano at St. Lawrence outside the Walls in Rome (Vespignani). The first foundation, dating back to 1834, was later expanded and defined by the great quadriportico with the chapel at its center, the large statue of the Risen Christ, and the vast expanse of gardens and hedges beyond the central enclosure. In Naples, the cemetery, built on the slope of the Poggio Reale hill, has a neoclassical monumental entrance that, via a broad avenue lined with fine tombs and chapels, leads to the so-called “Square of Illustrious Men,” behind which stands the Mother Church for funeral ceremonies on the days commemorating the dead. The cemetery of Genoa (C. Barabino and G. B. Resasco), located in the outlying district of Staglieno, against the backdrop of a hill, unfolds in a large rectangle enclosed by a series of arcades that connect to the center with the great Famedio and its imposing staircase. The abundance of vegetation and marble there creates a highly evocative atmosphere. Also worthy of mention are the cemeteries of Turin, Naples, Messina (Savoia and Fiore), Chiaravalle Milanese, and outside Italy, those of Cincinnati and Philadelphia, laid out as parks, the Père Lachaise in Paris, and that of Barcelona. — See Pl. CVI.