ABSTRACT
Italian cemeteries of the 1800s were markedly different from the 'egalitarian' burial grounds of the previous century. Whereas older graveyards tended to be bare, unadorned and closed to visitors, nineteenth-century cemeteries were lavish and monumental sources of civic pride. Their axial plans and impressive monuments expressed fundamental changes in Italian society, politics and culture, which gave rise to a marked investment in funerary architecture and underlying public frameworks. The nineteenth century was a period of turmoil and radical change in Italy. In the last years of the eighteenth century, the entire mainland came under the control of the French, who established a number of 'sister republics'. The French Edict of Saint-Cloud, which was introduced into Napoleonic Italy through a number of decrees in 1806–1809, prohibited burial in churches and churchyards, and established a minimum distance for the location of new cemeteries from built-up areas.
