Overview

For those who know how to look for them, there are oases of silence in Rome where you can regenerate yourself. One of these is the non-Catholic cemetery, also known as the "English cemetery", located behind the pyramid of Caius Cestius in Testaccio. You leave here with an invigorated spirit and with the impression that you have been on a stage of a Grand Tour at the height of romanticism. The cemetery was founded out of a real need: in Rome, those who were not Catholic had no right to a church burial and this was a problem for those who professed a different faith or no faith at all. Then, in 1700, Pope Clement XI allowed members of the Stuart court to be buried near the Pyramid. Gradually, more graves were added, and the cemetery grew to its present size.

Besides being a cemetery for many, it is a way to discover the wisdom of many past lives that rest here. The nationalities of the deceased are many (British, American, Chinese, French). There are many intellectuals, artists, philosophers, there are the poets Shelley and Keats, there is the grave of the youngest of the beat generation, Gregory Corso, there are politicians like Antonio Gramsci, writers like Carlo Emilio Gadda or Andrea Camilleri, there are women like the African-American obstetrician Sarah Parker Remond. Finally, there are the plaques and engravings, thoughts and sculptures, the most frequently photographed being William Wetmore Story's Angel of Grief, made for the grave of his wife.