The Campo Verano (Italian: Cimitero del Verano) is a cemetery in Rome, Italy, founded in the early 19th century. The monumental cemetery covers a surface area of 83 hectares which is currently divided into several sections: the main Catholic cemetery, the Jewish cemetery established in 1895, a Protestant section with its own entrance and a military section with monument to the victims of World War I.

History and description

The Verano (officially the "Communal Monumental Cemetery of Campo Verano") is located in the quartiere Tiburtino of Rome, near the Basilica di San Lorenzo fuori le mura. The name Verano refers to the ancient Roman Campo dei Verani that was located here. As evidenced by the existence of an earlier Roman necropolis dedicated to St. Ciriaca, the cemetery ground has been a burial place for at least twenty centuries. A modern cemetery was not established until the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy during 1807–1812, when the architect Giuseppe Valadier was commissioned for designs after the Edict of Saint-Cloud required burials to take place outside of the city walls. Although the cemetery was consecrated in 1835, the works continued during the pontificates of Gregory XVI and Pius IX, under the direction of Virginio Vespignani who also built the cemetery church of Santa Maria della Misericordia (consecrated in 1860), along with the monumental entrance gate. The vast burial ground in an open-air museum setting is located on an undulating slope, dotted with majestic tombs in different styles, varying from Neoclassical architecture to Art Nouveau. Enamel funerary portraits of the deceased painted on lava by Filippo Severati are worth seeing. The papal authorities still have some control over the administration. Pope Francis celebrated All Saints Day Mass here on a papal visit to the cemetery on 1 November 2014.

Notable burials

Note that plots are not necessarily perpetual concessions, and if the grant is not renewed, graves are recycled and remains are moved to an ossuary or somewhere else.

19th century

20th century

21st century

Gallery