Il Cimitero Acattolico di Roma

So, you are out in the world on your own. An expatriot or just a tourist from a far away place, come to Rome to see the sights. Boom, the unexpected happens. You get hit by a car or an outbreak of the Black Plague. Now you are standing at the Pearly Gates in front of St. Peter who tells you, "You're not a Catholic. There's no place for you in Rome!" But you know different so you head off to the non-Catholic Cemetery, just inside the original city walls of Rome. There you can lie at rest among one of the highest concentrations of interesting people you will find anywhere.

On Friday, after our Ostia visit, we swung past the cemetery on our way downtown. It is conveniently located near the Piramide stop of the Metro where it connects to the Ostiense Station, the terminus of the train to Viterbo. Alternately referred to as the Protestant Cemetery or, less frequently, the Foreign Cemetery, the non-Catholic Cemetery is the final resting place of a variety of dead people who find themselves in Rome with either no way or no desire to go home.

The pyramid was built by a wealthy Roman during the last half of the first century BC during a particular Egyptophile period. It was later incorporated into the city walls. Judging by the construction activity around its base, they are hoping to make it more accessible to tourists. One of the best views you get of the structure is from inside the cemetery.

The main part of the cemetery is packed. It gives the impression of being very old, so I was surprised to note that many of the graves are recent. As in, some are from last year.

In an open part of the cemetary, a travertine walk leads you to a pair of graves in the corner near a wall. The "young poet" on the left is actually Keats, identified on the headstone of his male "friend", Joseph Severn, on the right.

In the upper row near the wall at the back of the packed portion of the cemetery is Shelley, not all that far away from Goethe who is a few rows forward.

One of Amy's favorite monuments is for Emelyn Story, a young woman born in Boston in 1820. The angel draped over her stone was the last work of her sculptor husband. Note the fresh, red rose on the base of the monument.

The cemetery is another of the cat sanctuaries that dot Rome. We were there at feeding time and got to meet a number of the locals. I told Amy that if I die while I am in Italy I don't want to be buried there. In fact, I don't want to be buried anywhere. But, she can scatter my cremated remains wherever they will allow her and then make a donation in my name for the care of the cats. Apparently, those would be her wishes as well.