Brescia: Cimitero Vantiniano

The Cimitero Vantiniano was founded in 1815 and is one of the first Cemeteries build from scratch after Napoleon's Edict of Saint Cloud. The Edict forbid to bury the dead in and around churches and lead to the cemeteries we know today.

We first tried to visit this cemetery back in 2016 but it was closed over noon at the time. This time however we were there well before noon and could visit it properly:

The veiled female mourner by Battista Lombardi

The Monument of the Cuzzetti-Bonardy Family, Artist Odoardo Tabacci 

Trieste, Cimitero Cattolico di S. Anna

The Trieste Cemetery was a bit of a mystery for us since there was not really anything substantial to find out about it on the internet. But since Trieste is reasonable big and there is no bad cemetery in Italy as long as the city to where it belongs has more than 50.000 people it should be ok to visit it.

To cut it short: It is an excellent Cemetery. The only thing that really annoyed us is that one of the huge arcades was sealed off because of safety reasons. And that brings me to the atmosphere of the Cemetery. Especially the old sections has an air of derelict about it and visiting it in autumn makes it even more forlorn. 

There are several smaller cemeteries in the area, with separate entrances but only the greek-orthodox was worth visiting. The jewish was closed.

The following are from the greek-orthodox section:

She looks like a pirate!

Hamburg Ohlsdorf -revisit in Winter-

Last month i had the opportunity to revisit this huge cemetery again. And the circumstances were quite extraordinary: It was phantastically cold with practically no wind and a bright winter sun that gave us a rather beautiful light. So on the one hand we had really good conditons to shoot some beautiful stuff, but on the other hand we gave up rather fast since we were chilled to the bone.

One thing though that really puts me off every time i visit this particular cemetery: There is Rhododendron everywhere! And i bloody hate that stuff..

Since this Cemetery is one of the largest in the world (if not the largest of them all if you consider the amount of space it occupies) you are allowed to travel by car. So this time it was -more or less- a drive by shooting....

The cemetery itself has -at least in my mind- a strange coldness about it. And i am not talking about the weather this time. The sculptures are very often made from sand stone and they tend to feel hard and harsh to the beholder and they don't intend to comfort the mourners in any way.

Well.. see for yourself: