Wandering Here, I Called
To Mind The Decent Cemetery Of Lucera, And That Of Manfredonia, Built In
A Sleepy Hollow
At the back of the town which the monks in olden days
had utilized as their kitchen garden (it is
One of the few localities
where deep soil can be found on that thirsty limestone plain); I
remembered the Venosa burial-ground near the site of the Roman
amphitheatre, among the tombs of which I had vainly endeavoured to find
proofs that the name of Horace is as common here as that of Manfred in
those other two towns; the Taranto cemetery, beyond the railway quarter,
somewhat overloaded with pretentious ornaments; I thought of many cities
of the dead, in places recently explored - that of Rossano, ill-kept
within, but splendidly situated on a projecting spur that dominates the
Ionian; of Caulonia, secluded among ravines at the back of the
town. . . .
They are all full of character; a note in the landscape, with their
cypresses darkly towering amid the pale and lowly olives; one would
think the populace had thrown its whole poetic feeling into the choice
of these sites and their embellishments. But this is not the case; they
are chosen merely for convenience - not too far from habitations, and yet
on ground that is comparatively cheap. Nor are they truly venerable,
like ours. They date, for the most part, from the timewhen the
Government abolished the oldsystem of inhumation in churches - a system
which, for the rest, still survives; there are over six hundred of these
fosse carnarie in use at this moment, most of them in churches.
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