As soon as you step through the gate, you are greeted by sculptures, they are impressive, detailed, silent. You feel as if you have entered an open-air museum. For a moment, forget that you are in a cemetery and completely surrender to those works of art, which have been standing there for decades, sometimes even centuries.
I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it. I enjoyed it, despite the fact that I was in a cemetery, because it didn't feel like that. It was more of a journey through art, silence and history than a simple visit to a place of eternal rest.
Tomb in Milan
The research of Milan Cemetery has now become more intimate. This time I didn't stop in front of the Famio monumental building I have already written about I was already in directly to the part of the cemetery that precedes it, as if I had passed some side door in time.
It's all in the red stone. Buildings, arches, walls, have an almost church character, but without noise and bells. They act softly, sublime and closed, as gates of eternity. I didn't know exactly what they were to serve. Maybe it's family chapels, perhaps hidden memorials. I didn't ask, I didn't even have anyone, I just stood and absorbed.
I turned the left. The space changes immediately. The walls have become a gallery of memories, these are long strings of tombs built directly into the wall, one to the other, without a break, without decoration. They act quietly, dignified, almost archive. Each panel tells silently, name, year, some messages, some flower.
Everything is arranged with a measure. There is no kic, there is no pomp just honor and memories. Some inscriptions are faded, other printed with golden letters. The view is sliding down the rows as per old shelves in the library, but books are not read here, but lives.
I get into one of the rooms that open from the wall. In the air of light through the upper opening and the magical silence.
The walls are filled with the same tombs, neatly complex in height. But what stops the view are four statues, placed in a circle, one opposite another. You don't know if they keep space, or watching each other. They have a peaceful, somewhat sensible expressions. Like they wait, in silence, eternal.
The moment becomes almost spiritual. Not because of the religion, but because of the feeling you are at a place where time does not flow like else.
The Last Supper
I continue on and I come to the wall that completely takes my breath away. Secret dinner, in full size. In stone. The sculptural version of Leonarda da Vinci, with each expression, each movement caught at the moment Jesus speaks:
"One of you will betray me."
This interpretation is not trying to be a replica. It has its silence and depth, especially because it is here, here among the tombs. Set in the cemetery, "The Last Supper" stops being just a religious scene. It becomes a story of an end, about friendship, betrayal and what comes after.
The people who see her and the apartment remain a few minutes without words. And I am. Because in this context, this scene does not remind the church, but on the fate. We all sit for some of your table, we all have our moment of silence, and we all have someone we love, someone we have lost.
Alberto Keller
Alberto Keller (1800–1874) was a Roman of Swiss origin who moved to Milan at the age of twenty and became prominent in the silk industry and trade.
He was a protestant, with liberal ideas and a great supporter of the idea of cremation of the body instead of traditional burial.
Keller decided to finance the construction of the first crematorium in Italy, and one of the first in Europe, within the Cimitero Monumentale.
It was inaugurated on February 22, 1876, just two years after his death in a manner that was a display of modernization and civilization, and which was opposed to the dominant church views of the time.
With that symbolic act, his body became the first to be cremated in the crematorium built here, making him a living historical figure of change and progress.
In the part of the cemetery known as the Riparto Acattolici (the section for non-Catholics), a static Edicola Keller sculptural chapel was built dedicated to him and his family.
It was designed by Carlo Maciachini and the sculptor Giosuè Argenti, in a neo-Renaissance style inspired by Bramante.
In front of the entrance is the statue "Protezione", symbolically the protector, made of white marble
As I walked through these parts of the cemetery, it could not miss how full of symbols are architecture. Stars, circles, triangles, present states that are stories that architect Maciachini was prone to esoteria and masses, and that he consciously incorporated the symbolism of eternity, transience and internal knowledge in the design of this space.
Some tombs have symbols that do not work religiously. Some angels do not look at the sky already in the observer. All this creates a space that is not only a cemetery, but a maze of meaning. And although there are no confirmed "conspiracy theories", this part of the cemetery acts as a stage where time and space play some of their play.
This walk was not tourism. She was meeting her. Without a guide, no folder, just you and the time you don't have to chase.
The cemetery in Milan does not offer only monuments and names offers a feeling. And when he touches you once, you're coming back to his thoughts.
And that's why I'm not afraid to admit I enjoyed it. Although I was among the dead, I felt alive. Because art, silence and space as this reminds that death is not the end, but a story that continues, if someone remains to read it.
I hope you enjoyed reading and looking at the photos. I enjoyed making this blog, I hope you did too. Until next time, "Regards!"
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