Rome Cemetery

April 4, 2014

Cimetero Monumentale del Verano.  We've driven by this cemetery several times and even stopped to see it one time, but it was right at closing time and we couldn't get in.  Today we drove by it again and it was open.  We were supposed to have been at an appointment, but it got canceled last minute so we had a few minutes to spare.  The cemetery was actually much, much larger than we expected and we thought it would be big to begin with.  It's been a burial ground for 20 centuries, but was changed to a cemetery in 1805 and dedicated in 1835.  (Interesting side note:  I wanted a souvenir from the cemetery.  Right outside the gates are shops that sell plagues and statues and flowers, etc.  I saw a small marble vase for flowers in one of the windows and asked Michael to figure out how much it was.  Sometimes it's really convenient not to understand the language because the salesman thought he was crazy because his wife wanted a cemetery vase as a souvenir.  As they were conversing, we discovered that some of the vases were made from Carrera marble, from the same quarry that the marble used for the Christus and apostles in the new Rome Temple Visitor center are being made from.  That lead to a whole new discussion about the temple and why it was being built and where it was located.  It's actually being built fairly close to where the salesman lives.  By the time we were through, Michael had given him a pass-a-long card with the temple on it, directions to get to the temple and another card to use so he can contact us if he wants to go inside during the open house.  All this because Michael became fascinated with cemeteries when he served in Italy as a young missionary 40 years ago.)

This grave site is up for aution.