Protestant Cemetery, Rome

Coordinates: 41°52′35″N 12°28′48″E / 41.876399°N 12.479943°E / 41.876399; 12.479943

Protestant Cemetery

Shelley's Tomb in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome, an 1873 painting by Walter Crane.
Details
Year established	1738
Country	Italy
Location	Rome
Type	Public

The Protestant Cemetery (Italian: Cimitero protestante), officially called the Cimitero acattolico ("Non-Catholic Cemetery") and often referred to as the Cimitero degli Inglesi ("Englishmen's Cemetery") is a cemetery in Rome, located near Porta San Paolo alongside the Pyramid of Cestius, a small-scale Egyptian-style pyramid built in 30 BC as a tomb and later incorporated into the section of the Aurelian Walls that borders the cemetery. Mediterranean cypress trees and other foliage in the cemetery cause it to mirror the more natural style of cemeteries seen in the lusher regions of northern Europe. As the name of the cemetery indicates, it is the final resting place of non-Catholics (not only Protestants or English people).

History

The earliest known burial is that of an Oxford student named Langton in 1738. The most famous graves are those of the English poets John Keats (1795–1821) and Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822). Keats died in Rome of tuberculosis. His epitaph, which does not mention him by name, is by his friends Joseph Severn and Charles Armitage Brown: "This grave contains all that was mortal, of a YOUNG ENGLISH POET, Who on his Death Bed, in the Bitterness of his Heart, at the Malicious Power of his Enemies, Desired these Words to be engraven on his Tomb Stone: Here lies One Whose Name was writ in Water."

Shelley drowned off the Italian Riviera and was cremated on the shore near Viareggio. His ashes were interred in the Protestant Cemetery; his heart survived cremation and was picked up by his friend Edward John Trelawny and kept by Shelley's widow until her death. His heart was finally buried with his son, Sir Percy Florence Shelley in 1889.^[1]

Notable burials

• Hendrik Christian Andersen (1872–1940), sculptor, friend of Henry James
• R.M. Ballantyne, Scottish novelist.
• John Bell (1763–1820), Scottish surgeon and anatomist
• Pietro Boyesen (1819–1882), Danish photographer
• Karl Briullov (1799–1852), Russian painter
• Zakhar Grigor'evich Chernyshev (1796–1862), Russian participant in the Decembrist revolt
• Enrico Coleman (1846–1911), artist and orchid-lover
• Gregory Corso (1930–2001), American beat generation poet
• Richard Henry Dana, Jr. (1815–1882), American author of Two Years Before the Mast
• Frances Minto Elliot (1820–1898), English writer
• Robert Finch (1783–1830), English antiquary and connoisseur of the arts
• Carlo Emilio Gadda (1893–1973), Italian novelist
• John Gibson (1790–1866), Welsh sculptor, student of Canova
• August von Goethe (1789–1830), son of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe; his monument features a medallion by Bertel Thorvaldsen
• Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937), Italian philosopher, leader of the Italian Communist Party
• Richard Saltonstall Greenough (1819–1904), American sculptor
• Wilhelm von Humboldt (1794–1803), son of the German diplomat and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt
• Alexander Ivanov (1806–1858), Russian painter
• Vyacheslav Ivanov (1866–1949), Russian poet, philosopher, and classical scholar
• Chauncey Ives (1810–1894) American sculptor
• John Keats (1795–1821), English poet
• Belinda Lee (1935–1961),, British actress
• Hans von Marées (1837–1887), German painter
• George Perkins Marsh (1801–1882), American Minister to Italy 1861–1882, author of "Man and Nature"
• Malwida von Meysenbug (1816–1903), German author
• E. Herbert Norman (1909–57) Canadian diplomat and historian.
• Thomas Jefferson Page (1808–1899), commander of United States Navy expeditions exploring the Río de la Plata
• Bruno Pontecorvo (1913–1993), Italian nuclear physicist
• George Frederick Reinhardt (1911–1971) U.S. Ambassador to Italy 1961–1968 Administrator of this Cemetery 1961–1968
• Heinrich Reinhold (1788–1825), German painter, draughtsman, engraver. His tombstone features a medallion by Bertel Thorvaldsen
• Sarah Parker Remond (1826–1894), American abolitionist
• Gottfried Semper (1803–1879), German architect
• Joseph Severn (1793–1879), English painter, consul in Rome, and friend of John Keats, beside whom he is buried
• Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822), English poet
• Franklin Simmons (1839–1913), American sculptor and painter
• William Wetmore Story (1819–1895), American sculptor, buried beside his wife Emelyn Story, under his own Angel of Grief.
• John Addington Symonds (1840–1893), English poet and critic
• Lady Temple (died 1809), wife of Sir Grenville Temple, 9th Baronet
• Edward John Trelawny (1792–1881), English author, friend of Percy Bysshe Shelley, beside whose ashes he is buried
• Elihu Vedder (1836–1923), American painter, sculptor, graphic artist
• Wilhelm Friedrich Waiblinger (1804–1830), German poet and biographer of Friedrich Hölderlin
• Friedrich Adolf Freiherr von Willisen (1798–1864) prussian General an ambassador at the Holy See
• Constance Fenimore Woolson (1840–1894) American novelist and short story writer, friend of Henry James

See also

• Poets' Graves

References

1. ^ Shelley's Heart, The New York Times 8 June 1995 http://www.nytimes.com/1995/08/06/books/l-shelley-s-heart-678095.html

• International Herald Tribune; Elisabeth Rosenthal; 8 February 2006; "A Cemetery of Poets Is in Crisis in Rome"

External links

• On-line database of tombs and deceased
• Catalogue of gravestones and inscriptions
• Cemetery website (in Italian and English)
• The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 10, No. 285, 1 December 1827, Project Gutenberg E-text contains an article entitled "Protestant Burial-Ground At Rome"
• The Keats-Shelley House in Rome
• GPS coordinates you need to use to find the graves of famous people in the Non-Catholic Cemetery