English Cemetery, Naples
| Details | |
|---|---|
| Established | 1826 |
| Location | Naples |
| Country | Italy |
| Type | Protestant |
| Owned by | Commune of Naples |
The English Cemetery, Il Cimitero degli Inglesi, or more correctly, Il Cimitero acattolico di Santa Maria delle Fede, is located near Piazza Garibaldi, Naples, Italy. It was the final resting place of many Swiss, Germans, Americans, Irish, Scottish and English who lived in Naples, were passing through on the Grand Tour, or were merchants or seamen.
In 1826, the British Consul, Sir Henry Lushington, bought land within the gardens of the church of Santa Maria della Fede for a Protestant cemetery. The cemetery was the burial place of the (mainly foreign) Protestants who died in Naples, although people of other religions ended up here as well. It was a unique memorial to the foreigners who formed part of the commercial elite of Naples at that time.
The cemetery was closed for burials in 1893 and its maintenance given over to the British consulate. Over the following half-century what was once a romantic memory of the bourgeoisie of 18th-century Naples was scandalously allowed to fall into disrepair. Statues were vandalized and stolen and the entire cemetery became overgrown with weeds and vegetation. At the end of the 1950s the cemetery was donated to the Commune of Naples and a plan was drawn up for the re-utilization of the area. This foresaw the conversion of the cemetery into a public park, retaining some of the memorials as a reminder of the history of the cemetery and those interred in it. However, while most of the remaining land area of the cemetery was retained, only a fraction of the memorials were renovated and preserved, and the original ambience was almost obliterated in the construction of the public park.
Since its re-opening as a park in the early 1990s, some of the remaining memorials have been vandalized.
When the cemetery was given by the British Consulate to the City of Naples the area was made over as a park. Most of the graves were transferred to the main municipal Cemetery of Poggioreale. However, records remain of those who were buried here in the 19th century, along with some inscriptions.
Mary Somerville (née Fairfax) was a noted Scottish mathematician and theoretical astronomer of the nineteenth century. In the 1850s she and her husband came to Italy. Her husband died in 1860 in Florence and she moved to Naples. She experienced the 1872 eruption of Vesuvius in Naples, and died a few months later at the age of 92. Also buried in that grave are her daughters Martha, died 1879 and Mary, died 1875. Her memorial statue was the work of Francesco Jerace (1854–1937).
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