6 
THE MODERN CEMETERY. 
An Italian Campo Santo. 
W HILE 
Rome IS 
the city 
of tombs, and 
Florence the 
home and 
workshop and 
temple of art, 
and Pisa has 
the sacred soil, 
and Bologna 
has a throng 
of sepulchres 
that have the 
gift of beauty, 
it is in Genoa 
that the most 
remarkable 
evidence i s 
found of de- 
velopment in 
the artistic 
decoration of 
graves. • The 
city is in many 
ways entitled 
to the name 
she bears-the 
Superb. The 
A M\RBUE STATUE IN THE C VMPO SANTO, GENOA. i- •, 
climate is sin- 
gularly alluring, soft and brilliant. The mountains that 
enclose her form a barrier that guards Genoa from the 
chill of the Alps, and the Mediterranean tempers the 
airs of distant Spain and Africa. The orange trees 
glow with green and gold in the winter, and the palms 
and ferns receive the sunshine and repel the frost. It is 
to Italy and southern France that the invalids are sent 
from the harsh climates of northern Europe, and they 
often go too late. Here, on one of the old streets nigh 
the harbor, is the house where Daniel O’Connell died, 
and a tablet with medallion in the wall by the window 
where he breathed his last, revives recollection of his 
strenuous life and strong career, so peacefully closing at 
last on this sunny shore. 
On an eminence that commands a charming view is 
the tomb of Smithson, the founder of the Smithsonian 
Institution, a noble monument of one who was himself 
a mystery, and giving his fortune with a genial trust to 
do good in a distant land, made his name one of happy 
relations for all time — a household word in the mouths 
of countless millions of a great nation. 
The long line of low arches and weather-beaten walls 
of an aqueduct, bearing the tribute of mountain springs 
to Genoa, is on one side of a white road leading into 
the foothills where the Apennines stand back for a little 
space from the sea, and on the other side a shallow 
stream sparkles over wide beds of gravel and polished 
stones, where the washerwomen toil. After driving for 
half an hour into the country there is an enclosure of 
many acres, heavy walls, plain and grim, on the exteri- 
or, and within marble halls and colonnades, inclosing a 
field of graves under a multitude of crosses and decor- 
ated with offerings, some of which are quaint in their 
crude simplicity. 
Quickly the unique reputation of the Campo Santo 
of Genoa is explained, for many of the tombs are mar- 
vels of art, and are surprises in beauty and taste. Beside 
this, dingy and crowded Westminster abbey becomes a 
second-hand store of funeral bric-a-brac; and the 
things that are curious in startling originality of design 
are more notable than those that are attractive through 
delicacy of workmanship. First, one sees that art still 
lives in Italy; that whatever she has lost, her sculptors 
are not unworthy their surpassing inheritance of glory. 
Indeed, art is like the sunshine in the air, and an inspi- 
ration for the people from the cradle to the grave. 
Here in the palace of the dead the human figures, as 
always, are of the highest interest, and they alone would 
declare to the competent observer that in the race whose 
fathers conquered the old and discovered the new world 
the vital forces are found still with the “fatal gift of 
beauty.” The marble that is so dexterously and divinely 
cut is as of the perfect purity of snow new fallen and drift- 
ed, and whether it is the cunning of the hand that carves 
or the daintiness of the material, there is in the work an 
airy grace, and only the clear lines tell that the forms 
are not conjured out of crystal but chiselled in stone. 
On one side the corridor is open to the golden air, on 
the other walls as of pearl rise to the stainless roof. 
There is the sepulchre of a father, and at the door 
his son is in his arms and weeping, receiving his bless- 
ing. They are parting at the gate of the grave. There 
are children mourning by the tombs of their parents, 
perfect likenesses, charming attitudes, sorrowful expres- 
sions. There are widows and widowers mourning for 
lost companions, and it is not unknown that men who 
have found second mates walk where the dead repose, 
and see themselves in melancholy attudinizing. 
The story is told of a Frenchman — France is far 
away and affords the needed perspective — that a friend 
said to him; “Tsaw you at the funeral of your wife, and 
sympathized with your grief.” “Ah,” exclaimed the 
mourner, “you should have seen me at the tomb; there 
I was terrible!” It must be an odd sense of posing in a 
dramatic situation that a lady, who has buried a hus- 
band and figures a pensive statue at his grave, takes a 
second man who has had the happiness to win her, and 
presents herself to him, a statuesque affliction over the 
dust of the dear departed. More sculptured widows 
than widowers are found in the Genoese Campo Santo, 
and the guides who know the ways of the world and the 
fashion of the times point out those who are distin- 
