In 1806 the Napoleonic edict of Saint Cloud was extended to the Kingdom of Italy, which for sanitary and political reasons, established the placing of cemeteries outside the city walls and also declared equality between tombs to avoid discrimination between the dead, exception was given for the tombs of famous people. Consequently, the city of Verona found itself faced with the need to find a suitable site for its cemetery: the search took about two decades and in 1826, the vast area of the Campo Marzo, near Porta Vittoria, was acquired for just that purpose.

The construction of the Monumental Cemterey Verona started in 1828 on the basis of the project prepared by the architect Giuseppe Barbieri, who chose the neoclassical style for this new important piece of civil architecture. During the same period, with the construction site still in full operation, the first burials began.

After the death of Giuseppe Barbieri in 1838, the work was supervised by architect Francesco Ronzani who concluded the works in six years: the result was the creation of a new urban complex beyond the Adige river, a symbolic element of separation between the “city of the living” and the “city of the dead”.

Due to the strong urban and demographic expansion over a period of fifty years, the space proved to be inadequate to cope with the growing demand for burials: in 1910, the construction of the Cimitero Nuovo (new cemetery) began, which led to the doubling of the cemetery area.

In the 1930s, some small family chapels were built in the eastern part of the cemetery, which formed the so-called Cimitero Giardino (Garden Cemetery). The Tempio Ossario (ossuary shrine) was erected in the Cimitero Nuovo, dedicated to the fallen of the Great War.

During the second world war the Monumental Cemtery Verona suffered heavy damage due to the bombings that struck the nearby Porta Vescovo railway station, so much so, that it took about a decade to carry out the rebuilding of the collapsed walls and the restoration of damaged tombs and sculptures.

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