Certosa di Bologna Monumental Cemetery
The Monumental Cemetery of the Certosa di Bologna is located outside the city centre, near the stadium. Visiting the Certosa means discovering one of the oldest extra-urban cemeteries in Europe, whose original core coincides with a Carthusian monastery dating back to 1334, later suppressed during the Napoleonic era.
The cemetery houses the graves of illustrious personalities and monuments of great artistic value, which in the past were admired by distinguished visitors such as Lord Byron and Charles Dickens.
The Carthusian community and the Church of St Jerome
The church that still overlooks the central courtyard of the cemetery is
San Girolamo della Certosa, once the heart of the Carthusian community. Richly decorated, the church boasts a cycle of 17th century paintings depicting the life of Jesus, and a work by the
Bolognese painter Elisabetta Sirani, daughter of a collaborator of Guido Reni.
An artist of great skill, Elisabetta painted the canvas at a young age, when she was not even 20 years old. Her skill earned her many commissions in the city, but unfortunately her career ended very early: she died at only 27 years of age, to general amazement. Some suspected a murder by poisoning due to jealousy over the artist's enormous talent, a hypothesis which, however, never found any foundation.
The foundation of the cemetery
The core of the cemetery was located within the
main cloister of the monastery, next to the church of San Girolamo. With the Napoleonic suppressions, the monastery was forced to close in 1801, and gradually transformed into what was to become Bologna's main burial place.
A few decades later, during the bombing of World War II, the monastery cloister became the protagonist of a story with a happy ending. It was in one of its niches that the image of the
Madonna of San Luca found refuge, transported here to protect it from air attacks. A plaque on the bell tower still recalls the event today.
As the cemetery grew, so did the number of artists engaged in the decoration of the grave monuments. At first the tombs were painted, but as time went by, sculptures and bas-reliefs created by the greatest sculptors of the time, among them
the pupils of Canova, became more and more popular. Walking along the avenues of the Certosa is therefore a
journey through 19th and 20th century art history, and observing the various tombs it is possible to grasp the various stylistic differences.
The illustrious burials in the Certosa
There are many illustrious burials we can find in the Certosa. Among the more recent personalities who rest here, we cannot fail to mention
Lucio Dalla, the great Bolognese singer-songwriter. Speaking of music, the Certosa also houses the tomb of the Bolognese opera composer
Ottorino Respighi, whose body, however, was transported to Rome.
Other illustrious personalities that can be found in the Certosa include
Marco Minghetti, who died in 1886, a Bolognese politician belonging to the Historic Right, to whom we owe Italy's last balanced budget. Nobel Prize winner and professor emeritus of the University of Bologna
Giosué Carducci is also buried here, as is the painter
Giorgio Morandi. Staying on the subject of literature, Nicola Zanichelli, founder of the publishing house of the same name, also rests in Certosa. The world of motors, on the other hand, is represented by the tombs of Maserati, Ducati and Weber, founders of famous companies in the area.
Finally, the touching monuments in memory of the fallen of the First World War and the partisans who fell for the liberation are worth a visit.
