Getting Lost and Losing Yourself... In a Cemetery!

The Monumental Cemetery of Staglieno

I get off the bus. The sun is shining and it is quite warm in spite of a chilling wind making its way down the valley along the Bisagno river.

That same wind contributes to the "isolated" feeling that will accompany me for the following two hours.

I make my way around the Western corner and enter from the side entrance, past numerous stalls selling flowers and tombstones, as well as votive candles.

It's a Sunday morning, so there are many elderly people with bunches of flowers in their hands, heading in to greet loved ones and, I will later discover, lovingly change flowers and candles and even wash down their marble memorials.

The cemetery of Staglieno has been described as "an open air museum" for its wealth of sculptural art, dating back as far as 1850, and therefore spanning most of Italy's history as a single country (the 150th anniversary of the country's unity was only celebrated the year before last), but it is still a working cemetery, and among the graves that have evidently been there for at least a century, there are many much more recent than that, so it is a tour that should be taken on with the utmost respect for those who are there for personal reasons.

That said, the shear size of this place makes that particular part of the task easy.

Passing through the entrance, I immediately turn right into the "Lower Arcade", surrounding the original rectangular-shaped cemetery, which many vast extensions have now transformed into what strikes me more as a small village. There are even two bus lines in the upper parts of the cemetery, allowing people to get where they are going without having to spend an hour making the crossing.

As I turn in, the light grows immediately dimmer and I find myself surrounded by marble statues.

 

 

They are no longer "new and snowy" or "perfect", as Mark Twain described them in "Innocents Abroad, or The New Pilgrim Process". That was published in 1869 and the statues have since lost their snowy-ness, now various shades of light grey-to-black, and their surfaces have turned rough in the weather. No doubt they were beautiful when they were new, but I still find them breathtaking in their current condition. Perhaps even more convincing.

Time seems to slow down as I make my way past hundreds of unseeing eyes. I am usually a very fast walker, but here I feel my pace slow down increasingly the further I go on.

Luckily, I am taken out of my initial stupor when a very kind old man takes me by the elbow and points me in the direction of the one statue he thinks I really must see. He gives me a short version of the story. A lady named Caterina Campodonico, nicknamed "the peanut pedlar", worked her whole life selling peanuts and biscuits to pay for her own personal monument, built while she was still alive by a famous sculptor of the time, Lorenzo Orengo.

After telling me, again, that I must go and see it, the old man disappears through an archway and I continue my walk around the arcade. By the time I get to the end of my visit, I will forget to go and see that particular statue, which means I will have to go back there sometime and have another look around.

I continue my tour of the lower section, including a semicircular wing added to the Eastern side. It is quite interesting to see the difference between the various statues/monuments and their meaning, at least as far as the sculptor is concerned, although I am sure the messages portrayed here were subject to the approval of those paying for the work.

One tomb, for example, shows an old man, in all his frailty and completely naked, with nothing but a sheet to maintain his dignity, sitting at the bottom of a long, steep stairway leading up to God, and already looking very tired indeed.

Whoever this person was, they were obviously aware that they were taking none of their earthly belongings with them, unlike the many that took the trouble to point out that during their time on this Earth they had been a "lawyer", a "doctor", and "admiral", or even an "honest banker"...

Climbing the stairs of the Pantheon, there is a similar, though smaller rectangular layout, and the whole effect is very much the same. I don't get a chance to look inside the Pantheon (I don't even see if it is open), as I am busy following the many signposts pointing in the direction of Mazzini's tomb. If you get distracted and follow these sings, they take you all the way around the back and into the forest, where the tombs of various important historical figures are forever in the shade of beautiful trees.

Some of the monuments, in fact, are quite overgrown, to the point that you start to wonder if anyone remembers they are there.

It is at this point that it becomes easier to get lost. There are lots of dead-ends and stairways leading to fields in various phases of abandon and/or being dug up. Luckily, there are frequent signposts with maps of the cemetery and it's not that difficult to at least go in the right direction, although that doesn't necessarily mean you will see all the things you would like to see.

I eventually end up passing through or around the Jewish and Orthodox parts of the cemetery without even noticing the difference (and I was looking for them).
As for the Muslim part, I see no sign of it anywhere, although on my way down a stairway, through a hole in the rock wall on my left, I spot a whole other field, abandoned I'm quite sure, of more graves under quite a heavy attack from the local plant life.

At the end of the stairway I do manage to find the English part of the cemetery. Among others, there is the tomb of Mary Constance Lloyd, wife of Oscar Wilde as the grave itself states, although I have read that the whole reason she was in Genoa was to get away from him.

There is an Evangelical chapel in that part of the cemetery, as well as various signs reminding the Italians not to put votive candles and sacred images up in that area.

After that comes the military part of the cemetery, with many monuments to the various armed forces, and then, the same way I went in, I'm out again, standing at the bus stop in the wind two hours later.

A Creuza for Beginners

Long before cars, motorcycles, buses and cablecars, the only means the Genovesi had of going up and down the mountainside was on foot, along a narrow, sometimes winding, often impossibly steep kind of path or alley referred to, in the local dialect, as creuza.

When you first arrive here, or in any of the villages along the coast, discovering where each one leads, and taking on the challenge of climbing one, is part of the fun in getting to know your new surroundings. Most start at the coast and make their way far up, almost to the top of the mountainside. They are the frustrated foreigner's ideal outlet for letting off steam and just getting your mind off things for a while.

The most common desing of a creuza is a narrow red brick strip or stairway (the length of the stairs usually an awkward just too long for a single step and just too short for two), with two equally narrow strips of pebbles set in cement on either side, although this is by no means a standard.

An ideal introduction to this concept, for someone visiting the city and who does not have as much time to "blow off steam", could be the salita alla Spianata di Castelletto: starting from Piazza della Meridiana (Meridiana means sundial, and Palazzo della Meridiana, which has just recently been refurbished, has one on its façade), it takes no more than ten minutes, walking relatively slowly so you can take it all in, to reach Spianata Castelletto. Castelletto is a suburb just above the city centre and the spianata ends in a panoramic terrace, called Belvedere Montaldo, litterally hanging over the old city.

From here you can see far off to the East, you can try and identify the various sites you have visited throughout the day, and far off to the West the view includes the city's beloved Lanterna, the historical lighthouse and symbol of the city.

Castelletto is a rather wealthy neighbourhood, and considering the views it is easy to see why. If you go up there in the late afternoon you will probably be in the company of numerous small dogs on their evening walk.

As I mentioned in the title, this is an introduction for beginners, and you should not be out of breath or particularly tired at this point, but if you don't feel like walking back down, there is a municipal elevator (ascensore in Italian), which will take you back down to the city centre for just 80 cents, or with an ordinary bus ticket. Of course, the elevator will bring you up here as well, but then you would have missed out on the fun part...