The Cimitero Monumentale, inaugurated in 1866, was born as a cemetery open to all Milanese “to all forms and all the fortunes”, but it is clear from the very beginning the will to make it become “Monument of milanesity”, place of civic memories and as such, devoted not only to sorrowful but to a wider audience.
The work of Carlo Maciachini incorporates several stylistic suggestions according to the eclectic taste of the time, associating Gothic forms with Lombardy and Pisan Romanesque and with Byzantine inserts.
In the sculptures and architectures of the Monumental, you can trace the events of the city and most of its artistic history, from the realism and eclecticism of the late nineteenth century to the liberty and symbolism of the early twentieth century, from the thirties to the contemporary, as in a true an extraordinary “Open Sky Museum” where the most important Italian artists are represented.
Its current surface is 250 thousand square meters. The cemetery is comprised of 3 distinct areas: the central and largest one dedicated to the Catholics deceased, the one to the left for the non-Catholics, and the one to the right is the so-called “Israelites’ allocation”.
The largest area, looking at the Monumental Cemetery is the Famedio. The Italian term deriving from the Latin “famae aedes” and stands for a temple of fame.
Along with the chapels of the great families, representatives of Milan’s culture, and entrepreneurship. Here rest many personalities who have linked their name to the political and civil history of Milan and Italy such as the writers Alessandro Manzoni and Salvatore Quasimodo, the founder of the socialist party Filippo Turati, or the musical director Arturo Toscanini.
USEFUL INFO
Opening hours: Tue – Sun (08.00 AM – 06.00 PM)
Admission: free
How to reach: Metro Monumentale, Tram 10, 12, 14, 19 Bus 70
Address: Piazzale Cimitero Monumentale, 20154 Milano MI
