The Monumental Cemetery of Ravenna
By forbidding any burial inside the urban areas part of the napoleonic domains, the edict of Saint Cloud (1804) represented an important turning point for the urban plannings of the nineteenth century. The edict was dictated by the desire to preserve the public health, while implying an evident attempt to deprive the Church of a place of great importance for the community.
The new graveyards were thus accurately designed; nineteenth century mentality often expressed the values of middle-class society through these spaces.
A good example of this change of perspective is given by the Monumental Cemetery of Ravenna, designed by the city chief engineer Romolo Conti (1832-1908) near the old graveyard (opened in 1817).
The construction began in 1879, and it necessarily dealt with a double issue: preserving the burial area from the risk of flooding and create a truly monumental cemetery, which could really satisfy the aspirations of the rapidly ascending local middle-class.
The ground floor was raised of 60 centimeters in order to prevent floodings, while for the architecture was chosen an austere neogothic style, well integrated with the pensive atmosphere, inspired by the presence of the water and the pines, which was very appreciated in the italian moumental cemeteries.
Over the years, the best sculptors from Ravenna – from Enrico Pazzi (1818-1899), to Attilio Maltoni (1862-1911), from Luigi Casadio (1873-1933) to Gaetano Cellini (1875-1957) – executed remarkable funerary monuments for the most important middle-class families of the city.
Monument of the Ravulli family, Alessandro Massarenti (1846-1923)
Among these monuments is worth of notice the one dedicated to Mazzotti, executed in 1906 by Alessandro Massarenti, composed by a portrait in rilief of the deceased, surmonted by a female figure seated and intetifiable with the allegory of Industry and Trade.
The “Sirotti memory”, by Alessandro Massarenti, is a sculpture characterized by the intense expression of the faces of two young deceased sisters.
Among the famous characters buried in the Monumental Cemetery of Ravenna, worth of mention are Nullo Baldini, Fortunato Buzzi, Romolo Gessi, Luigi Rava, Corrado Ricci and Gioacchino Rasponi.
