Tucked beside an ancient gate and within a bend in Rome’s third-century Aurelian Walls are two landmarks: one is the pyramid-shaped Roman tomb of a first-century civic magistrate named Gaius Cestius; the other is Rome’s Non-Catholic Cemetery (often called the Protestant Cemetery).
The cemetery got its start in the early eighteenth century when this area of town was little more than a cow field. The cemetery was established to accommodate the graves of non-Catholic travelers and residents who died in Rome, for Papal law forbade their burial in Catholic resting places.
The earliest grave discovered in the Protestant cemetery dates to 1738, an era in which Roman law required that funeral services be held after dark and by torch light. Since the early eighteenth century, approximately 4000 people have been buried in this green idyll, and today, the cemetery is one of the most peaceful and beautiful places in all of Rome.
A cemetery is a must-see for any lover of literature. In the oldest section of the cemetery is the grave of the English Romantic poet, John Keats (1796-1821). Having contracted tuberculosis, Keats came to Rome in search of a healing climate. He took up residence in a pensione overlooking the Spanish Steps, but the disease took his life just three months after his arrival.
After Keats’ death, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelly visited his grave in the Protestant Cemetery and wrote that “it would make one in love with death to be buried in so beautiful a place.” When Shelley himself died in a boating accident near Viareggio in 1822, his body was cremated on the beach, but his ashes were interred in this cemetery and his grave was inscribed cor cordium or “heart of hearts.”
From the early nineteenth century to the present day, the graves of Keats and Shelley have been sites of literary pilgrimage. Oscar Wilde sought to pay homage to these Romantic poets when he visited the cemetery in 1877, immediately after an audience with Pope Pius IX. Upon seeing the grave of Keats, Wilde fell to the ground and lay prone atop the plot for a long while. When he rose to his feet he declared, “this is the holiest site in Rome”.
Visitors to the Protestant Cemetery agree that it is one of Rome’s most extraordinary sites. But, at present, the Cemetery is at risk. It was on the World Monument Fund’s 2006 list of the 100 most endangered sites on earth. Many of the cemetery’s monuments are crumbling – they’ve been damaged by pollution and by years without maintenance. The landscape is overgrown, and the site is waterlogged by poor drainage.
To help preserve the cemetery, a new organization, Friends of the Non-Catholic Cemetery in Rome, has been founded. Monetary donations are always appreciated, and the organization is also currently in need of volunteers to help run the visitors center. If you can offer your time, please contact Heather Munro, coordinator of volunteers, at heatherm@tin.it or 333.3092201.
