Resurrecturis pantheon

The Resurrecturis pantheon is the main entrance to the Monumental Cemetery and is full of references to neoclassical architecture. The two facades are addressed to the graveyard and to the Aleardi bridge: on the one hand we face Verona of the dead and of memory, on the other we connect with the Verona of the living. On the top of the pantheon there are three statues, the Angel of the Resurrection in the center, the History on the left and the Justice on the right: made by Giuseppe Poli and Giacomo Grigolli in 1883, the sculptures were destroyed during the Second World War and faithfully recreated by Gino Bogoni in the Sixties. In the arch below two veiled and weeping women, the Mourners sculpted by Carlo Spazzi in 1882, sit on the sides of a vase covered with a funeral cloth, an image of the sum of pains that the cemetery contains. On either side of the entrance stairway there are two lions in tuff, a sleeping one, symbol of death, and an awake one to symbolize the resurrection. Tribute to those sculpted by Canova for the tomb of Pope Clement XIII in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, the two statues, sculpted by Salesio Pegrassi in 1882, are the origin of the expression “l’albergo ai du leoni” (the hotel to the two lions) used ironically by the Veronese to indicate the Monumental Cemetery.