The Cimitero Acattolico di Roma (the Non-Catholic Cemetery, also known as the Protestant Cemetery. Cimitero degli Inglesi, in older usage) at Via Caio Cestio 6 (immediately beside the Piramide Cestia in the Testaccio quarter, Rome) is simultaneously the most visited small cemetery in Italy and one of the most moving: the final resting place of John Keats (died Rome, February 23, 1821, aged 25), Percy Bysshe Shelley (died at sea near Lerici, July 8, 1822, aged 29), Antonio Gramsci (died in Fascist imprisonment, April 27, 1937, aged 46), Joseph Severn (the English painter who stayed with Keats through his final illness and outlived him by more than 50 years, buried beside him at his own request), and hundreds of other Northern European, American, and non-Catholic residents of Rome who died in the city over three centuries.
Shelley called the Cimitero Acattolico "the most beautiful and solemn cemetery I ever beheld" in the preface to his Adonais (the elegy for Keats). This is the specific quality that draws visitors: not the celebrity of the buried (though Keats and Shelley are famous enough) but the specific combination of the ancient Aurelian Wall as backdrop, the shade of the umbrella pines and cypresses planted in the 18th century, the pyramid of Gaius Cestius visible above the east wall, and the specific funerary aesthetic of Northern European Protestantism in Rome, the restrained, personal, often deeply moving inscriptions on modest stones that contrast with the elaborate marble theatrics of Italian Catholic funerary culture.
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The Cemetery: Key Graves
The Keats Grave
John Keats was brought to Rome in September 1820 on medical advice (tuberculosis, the Roman winter climate was then believed to be beneficial for pulmonary tuberculosis, though Keats's specific case was too advanced for any climate to help). He died on February 23, 1821, in the apartment at the base of the Spanish Steps (now the Keats-Shelley House museum). He was buried in the older section of the Cimitero Acattolico (the lower-left area when entering the main gate). The gravestone, designed by his companion Joseph Severn, bears no name at Keats's own request, only the inscription: "This Grave contains all that was Mortal of a Young English Poet, Who, on his Death Bed, in the Bitterness of his Heart at the Malicious Power of his Enemies, Desired these Words to be engraved on his Tomb Stone: HERE LIES ONE WHOSE NAME WAS WRIT IN WATER." The "malicious power of his enemies" refers to the savage reviews of Endymion in the Tory press (Blackwood's Magazine, the Quarterly Review) that Keats believed had destroyed his reputation and his health.
The Shelley and Gramsci Graves
Shelley's grave (upper section of the cemetery, near the Aurelian Wall): the stone reads "Percy Bysshe Shelley / COR CORDIUM / Born 4 Aug. 1792 / Died 8 July 1822 / Nothing of him that doth fade / But doth suffer a sea-change / Into something rich and strange" (Shakespeare, The Tempest). The heart of Shelley (preserved from the funeral pyre on the Viareggio beach and retrieved by Leigh Hunt) is buried with him. Gramsci's grave (the Marxist theorist and Italian Communist Party founder, imprisoned by Mussolini from 1926 and who died nine days after his release): a red granite stone in the newer section, consistently decorated with flowers left by Italian communist and labor movement visitors.
Q&A: Cimitero Acattolico
What are the visiting hours and admission?
Open Tuesday-Sunday 9:00-17:00 (last entry 16:30). Closed Monday. Admission: €3 suggested donation (not obligatory but the cemetery's maintenance depends on voluntary donations, contribute the full amount). The cemetery is managed by the Associazione del Cimitero Acattolico, a private association, not the Italian state. The maintenance quality is exceptional and reflects the specific commitment of the association to preserving this internationally significant site. Photography is permitted. The specific photographic ethics: the cemetery is a working burial ground visited by the families of those buried here, treat it with the appropriate respect regardless of its tourist status.
Internal Links
- Piramide Cestia: Il Monumento Accanto al Cimitero
- Shelley nel Golfo dei Poeti: La Casa di Lerici
- Gramsci: La Teoria e la Prigione
- Roma Testaccio: Il Quartiere del Cimitero
- Grand Tour Roma: Keats, Shelley e Goethe
- Fotografare il Cimitero: Luce e Rispetto
- Roma Settecentesca: Il Grand Tour dei Romantici
