This is a guide to Milan’s Monumental Cemetery, Italy’s largest open-air museum, with over 100,000 visitors every year.
In its over 150 years of existence it has become the “city of the dead” for Milan’s most prominent figures, who summoned the most famous sculptors and architects of their time to eternalise themselves and their descendants.
Today, many of these great families have been forgotten; nevertheless, the sculptures of artists such as Vincenzo Vela, Medardo Rosso, Adolfo Wildt, Lucio Fontana, Giacomo Manzù and Giò Pomodoro, as well as the funerary chapels of architects such as Piero Portaluppi, Mario Labò, Giulio Cesare Arata and other lesser-known architects still stand proud. The range of architectural styles is quite remarkable.
The guide is organised into thematic itineraries. It is indispensable for finding your way around and reaching monuments of great artistic and civic importance, as well as for spending a few pleasant hours in the open air, away from the chaos of the big city.