SNG and I bought a few CDs of old Joy Division stuff a few months ago, and one of the album covers had this interesting B&W picture of people in mourning. On closer inspection, I realized that it was a sculpture from this cemetery. The picture was so intriguing that I had to find out more about this place. Here is someone else's picture of that same sculpture. I trawled around the website looking at these pictures and was awestruck. The funerary sculptures range from poignant to odd, passing through spooky and occasionally arriving at downright freaked out. Most of the scultpures have such realism that you almost see them blink, but more than just realistic they have that something that gives them movement of a sort. It reminds me of how I feel looking at the Nike of Samothrace (or Winged Victory, depending on who your art history teacher was): I can just barely hear the salty ocean waves crashing up on the great warrior goddess.



If you click on Photogallery from the main page, you will be able to select areas of the cemetery to see pictures of. Most areas have multiple pages, so this is potentially fun for hours.



Better than sit and look at it on the internet forever, shouldn't we visit this place? J&K, it sounds like your kind of sightseeing. What do you say? Next summer (2008), group trip to Genoa? Or, since it's coastal, perhaps springtime (when it's less crowded)? Anyone else up for a quick trip to Italy? Of course, stopovers in France and Germany are recommended! Isabelle, this isn't all that far from you by car, is it?