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Frances Lincoln Number of pages: 256 Language: English (Original Language) Language: English (Unknown) Language: English (Published)

RRP: £40.00
LASTING LEGACIES OF LOVE
Review date: 2005-01-14 Rating: 8 out of 10

It may come as a surprise to many that much of Italy's compelling art is found in its cemeteries. As it happens, during the 19th and 20th centuries some of the most acclaimed sculptors were commissioned by families, both Christian and Jewish, to create lasting memorials to their loved ones. Thus, in effect, breathtaking outdoor museums were born.

Now, for the first time in the English language a comprehensive pictorial representation of these art works is found in "Italian Memorial Sculptures 1820-1940: A Legacy of Love". Robert W. Fichter has contributed a number of these luminous photos. He notes that he first became interested in the cemetery movement with a monument he found in the Porte Sante Cemetery located on a hill above Florence. The monument depicts a young couple, "a woman in a gown and a young man in his military uniform gazing at each other." The story is that the young man went to war, and did not return. Photos were used as a source for these images.

Further Fichter notes that he saw "the cemeteries and the monuments themselves as cultural indexes of the lives and times of both the people who had produced the sculpture and those who had commissioned the work." From this initial vision came a collection of rare photographs for the benefit of lay people, photographers, artists, and historians.

The second photographer to contribute to this volume is Robert Freidus who visited the Monumentale Cemetery while on a sightseeing trip to Milan. As he says as soon as he walked on the land he was captured by the amazing beauty he found.

A scholarly text by Sandra Berresford who now teaches in Italy accompanies the 450 photographs. She deftly analyzes the cultural and historical background of the works. Of special interest, perhaps is an exploration of the iconography of angels. For travelers a guide to the cemeteries of northern and central Italy is included.

We're sorry to note that some of the sculptures are now being razed by cemetery administrators, which is a great loss to the world and more specifically to the history of the funerary art tradition and the European cemetery movement.

- Gail Cooke