'English' Cemetery Florence

APPELLO/APPEAL

2008-05-03T04:44:00.009+02:00

We have together created so much beauty in the English Cemetery. Take a walk with us amongst our purple irises - which are Florence's lily.

The main avenue of which the right side is about to be destroyed.

Newly restored tomb to the right was placed by Mary Somerville for her husband William. She discovered two planets, taught mathematics to Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron's daughter, who, with Charles Babbage, invented the computer.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Lord Leighton copying the iris which is Florence's lily for the tomb motif

August Mannerheim, Finland

James Lorimer Graham, American Consul

Southwood Smith

Left avenue

Ann Susanna Horner

Arthur Hugh Clough's tomb and the last standard rose left of an avenue of these.

But all this is now about to be destroyed. In January the Cemetery will be shut down, the digging will start and concrete loculi for the burial of ashes placed everywhere. Can you write a letter to the Swiss Evangelical Reformed Church to be copied to the Belle Arti which judicates concerning historical monuments, saying that the 500 modern concrete loculi amongst the 700 historic tombs that remain of the 1400 burials here will destroy the atmosphere of the place. Explain that you understand the Swiss need the funding for the Cemetery these loculi for the burial of ashes would give but that they need to be placed with sensitivity for the historic and artistic importance of this place. Request that the work be carried out first on one side, then on the other, allowing the Cemetery to still be visitable. Request also that the 42 loculi planned along the right side of the avenue blocking access to Arthur Hugh Clough's grave and destroying the symmetry of the very beautiful central avenue be placed elsewhere in the Cemetery. Specify also that the tomb slabs for the new graves be simple and in marble, so as not to clash with the historic monuments. Send the letters to this address in e-mails or by post and I will deliver them to the Swiss Church which owns the Cemetery and to the Belle Arti.

Yours sincerely,
Julia Bolton Holloway
President, Aureo Anello Association Mediatheca 'Fioretta Mazzei' and Friends of the 'English' Cemetery
Piazzale Donatello, 38
50132 FIRENZE, ITALY

We are now at 1442 signatures on the web at http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/471134975,
'That the Swiss-owned, so-called 'English' Cemetery in Florence be kept open, be restored and be declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site', and with 4150 signatures in-house from our visitors, for a total of 5582 signatures. We have decided to keep them coming.

If you wish to donate to the Aureo Anello Association for the restoration of the 'English' Cemetery you can do so by a cheque made out to 'Aureo Anello' and posted to 'English' Cemetery, Piazzale Donatello 38, 50132 Florence, Italy; or through the Pay Pal 'Donate' button below, which can also be used for the CDs, for the hand-bound limited edition books or for the sculptures of Elizabeth and Robert's 'Clasped Hands' or tondos with their portraits (Amalia Ciardi Duprè's sculpture can also be found at http://www.florin.ms/amaliadupre.html), or some or all of these.

CEMENT AND FLOWERS

2008-04-01T13:50:00.012+02:00

Wild irises (Florence's purple lilies) planted by the tombs

This morning I woke up remembering a story Rose had written. Rose was an abandoned gypsy child taken to an orphanage in England by her mother because her father could not control his drinking in their poverty. This is part of her story she wrote for me, for us, in my convent. In which she described, after a successful career as army cook, buying a house. The previous owner had been a woman dying of cancer and angry with the world and unable to tend her garden. She ordered it covered over with cement. Rose and her children now set to work with pickaxes, removing that layer, at night taking hunks of concrete to the skip illegally, and finally restoring the once-lost, murdered garden. Rose died of cancer before she could see her book published on the web and in print. But she left for us seeds of words and seeds of flowers, a book and a garden.

Camus in his Notebooks says we are free to stoke the crematoria at Auschwitz or to nurse lepers in Africa. We are also free to cover the earth with concrete, purchase and drive gas-guzzlers - or to plant gardens. Those who do the first in these series will do their best to cover gardens with cement, those in the second part will be lugging hunks of concrete secretly in the night! But we just might between us save or restore some gardens, heal some ravaged bodies and minds and souls and ourselves have peace of mind and great joy.

And this is now happening here! For years this Cemetery has been put to weed killer and four years ago almost all its nineteenth-century plants rooted out - to save money. It looked so gray and dead. Finally I persuaded the Swiss to stop the weed-killing, visitors have been giving us bulbs, lavender, rosemary, strawberry plants, box, myrtle, pomegranate and rose bushes, and master gardeners have been giving us advice and help. Not only this, my weeders of stinging nettles and dandelions are gypsy families and we have now won the right to establish a training center here for them, an apprenticeship, where they can learn gardening, stone masonry, blacksmithing, sewing, book-binding, paper marbling, reading and writing, so they can work to repair their houses in Romania and send their children there to school. I love our Rom families. They don't really need training, already knowing how to build dry walls expertly, how to carpenter (the women!), how to sew (the men!), how to tell weeds from flowers, before you even tell them. But no one will give them work anywhere. This will be our breakthrough. Because of the television broadcast on Easter Day (you can find it in the middle of the video that you can call up by Googling 'tg1 speciale silenzio Dio' and then its archive) people are now finding the funds for this program from foundations. We are writing proposals explaining how they work in families, not as individuals. And the women work better almost than the men. In our seven years of them here nothing has been stolen. We are calling our project 'From Graves to Cradles', for we even make their beautiful traditional rocking cradles - which are immediately put to use with their babies in them!

Our Cemetery is now filled with flowers, lavender and rose petal sachets are perfuming the library, and there is great joy everywhere. The Rom and I are planting shoots in pots under plastic - what the Italians call a 'vivaio', a nursery garden. Costs nothing. It is so much better to produce than to consume, so much better to build a hospital, a school, a library, a garden. And to keep on doing so. A great conspiracy of peace, of healing, of learning, of nurturing in the world.

Florence's Cathedral seen from the 'English' Cemetery

We are now at 1488 signatures on the web at http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/471134975,
'That the Swiss-owned, so-called 'English' Cemetery in Florence be kept open, be restored and be declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site', and with 4134 signatures in-house from our visitors, for a total of 5572 signatures. We have decided to keep them coming.

If you wish to donate to the Aureo Anello Association for the restoration of the 'English' Cemetery you can do so by a cheque made out to 'Aureo Anello' and posted to 'English' Cemetery, Piazzale Donatello 38, 50132 Florence, Italy; or through the Pay Pal 'Donate' button below, which can also be used for the CDs, for the hand-bound limited edition books or for the sculptures of Elizabeth and Robert's 'Clasped Hands' or tondos with their portraits (Amalia Ciardi Duprè's sculpture can also be found at http://www.florin.ms/amaliadupre.html), or some or all of these.

Sincerely,
Julia Bolton Holloway
Aureo Anello Association for the Library and Cemetery
Piazzale Donatello, 38
50132 FIRENZE, ITALY

'The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world'

FLORENCE AND THE AMERICANS: CALL FOR PAPERS

2007-11-29T09:24:00.001+01:00

FLORENCE'S CITY AND BOOK CONFERENCES

THE CITY AND THE BOOK V:

FLORENCE AND THE AMERICANS

CALL FOR PAPERS. (PLEASE CIRCULATE THIS CALL AMONG FELLOW SCHOLARS)

Eighty Americans are or were buried in Florence's Swiss-owned so-called 'English' Cemetery, 1827-1877. This fifth City and Book conference will concentrate on these and on other American writers and artists present in Florence in the nineteenth century and on Anglo-Florentine writers closely associated with them. We have papers on Hiram Powers, Louisa (Adams) Kuhn and Henry Adams, James Lorimer Graham, Richard Hildreth, Margaret Fuller, Kate Field and Lilian Whiting. We seek papers on Theodore Parker, Joel Hart, Amasa Hewins, Nathaniel and Sophia Peabody Hawthorne, Henry James and others.

The Proceedings will be published on the Web immediately following the Saturday, 11 October 2008, City and Book V Conference. The list of American burials in Florence's Swiss-owned so-called 'English' Cemetery can be found at http://www.florin.ms/americantombs.html

We are now at 1435 signatures on the web at http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/471134975,
'That the Swiss-owned, so-called 'English' Cemetery in Florence be kept open, be restored and be declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site', and with 4067 signatures in-house from our visitors, for a total of 5502 signatures. We have decided to keep them coming.

If you wish to donate to the Aureo Anello Association for the restoration of the 'English' Cemetery, particularly its American tombs, you can do so by a cheque made out to 'Aureo Anello' and posted to 'English' Cemetery, Piazzale Donatello 38, 50132 Florence, Italy; or through the Pay Pal 'Donate' button below, which can also be used for the CDs, for the hand-bound limited edition books or for the sculptures of Elizabeth and Robert's 'Clasped Hands' or tondos with their portraits (Amalia Ciardi Duprè's sculpture can also be found at http://www.florin.ms/amaliadupre.html), or some or all of these.

Sincerely,
Julia Bolton Holloway
President, Aureo Anello Association for the Library and Cemetery
Piazzale Donatello, 38
50132 FIRENZE, ITALY

THE SAVAGE LANDORS AND FLORENCE'S 'ENGLISH' CEMETERY

2007-10-13T04:17:00.000+02:00

Cimitero ‘degli Inglesi’, 13 Ottobre 2007
The Savage Landor Family and the Swiss-owned so-called 'English' Cemetery

Musica: Canone di Pachelbel

Flauto, Clarissa Bencini; Flauto e ottavino, Laura Manescalchi

Lettori: Julia Bolton Holloway, Presidente, Aureo Anello Associazione Biblioteca e Bottega Fioretta Mazzei; Maria Grazia Beverini Dal Santo, Presidente, Lyceum Club e Fondazione il Fiore

I. Walter Savage Landor

Walter Savage Landor loved gardens. Both Walter Savage Landor and Elizabeth Barrett Browning loved poetry and loved gardens. Seven years ago here all was dead, grey, ugly, from weed-killer. The more I read and the more I listened I learned that this so-called ‘English’ Cemetery had been a famous and most lovely garden. In Ireland once I saw a poetry garden. This hill can again become such a garden for poets and for ourselves. Now, thanks to Katherine Goldsmith of The Ecologist and to Dott. Vieri Torrigiani Malaspina of the Giardino Torrigiani, the wild strawberries have returned, the box hedge is restored and three pomegranates grace our three famous poets’ graves. In a sense gardens and poems are human constructs married to nature, not violating her but seeking instead to heal and woo her into loveliness, into gracefulness, into fruitfulness.

Walter Savage Landor amava i giardini. Walter Savage Landor ed Elizabeth Barrett Browning, ambedue poeti, amavano la poesia e i giardini. Sette anni fa questo luogo appariva spoglio, brullo, brutto per il continuo utilizzo di sostanze diserbanti. Da numerosi diari e documenti apprendiamo che questo Cimitero detto ‘degli Inglesi” era un famoso e bellissimo giardino. In Irlanda ho potuto ammirare un giardino della poesia, e questa collinetta potrebbe trasformarsi in uno splendido parco dei poeti per tutti noi. Ora grazie alla generosità di Katherine Goldsmith, moglie del fondatore ed editore di The Ecologist, e grazie al Dott. Vieri Torrigiani Malaspina del Giardino Torrigiani, sono state create delle siepi di bosso e sono stati piantati tre piccoli melograni che adornano i sepolcri dei nostri illustri poeti, cominciano anche a spuntare le piantine di fragole di bosco così come un tempo. In un certo senso i giardini e la poesia sono creazione dell’uomo intimamente legati alla natura, non la violano ma cercano invece di sanarla e corteggiarla per esaltarne la bellezza, la fecondità e la grazia.

Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864) is the poets’ poet, beloved by the Shelleys and the Brownings. He was impetuous, generous and difficult, a Romantic writer who had outlived that famous poetic generation of Keats, Shelley and Byron. He was born in Warwick, educated at Rugby and Trinity, and published Gebir at twenty-three, then again in 1803 in both English and in Latin. The idea for the Arabian tale of Gebir, set in Egypt, came from a book Rose Aylmer, the daughter of Lord Aylmer, had lent him. Gebir was Shelley’s favourite poem. It was also admired by Southey. In 1799 the young and beloved Rose Aylmer sailed for Bengal with her aunt, Lady Russell, dying there of cholera.

Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864), il poeta dei poeti, fu molto amato dai Shelley e dai Browning. Di temperamento impetuoso, spirito ribelle ma al contempo generoso, poeta romantico che sopravvisse all’illustre generazione di Keats, Shelley e Byron. Nasce a Warwick e compie gli studi alla Rugby School e al Trinity College. Pubblica ventitreenne il poema epico Gebir, che ripubblica poi nuovamente nel 1803 in inglese e in latino. L’idea per il racconto arabo di Gebir gli derivò da un libro avuto in prestito da Rose Aylmer, figlia di Lord Aylmer. Gebir fu il poema più amato da Shelley e grandemente apprezzato da Robert Southey. Nel 1799 la giovane e amata Rose Aylmer compie un viaggio con la zia Lady Russell in Bengala e muore lì di colera.

Fighting at his own expense in Spain against Napoleon provided Savage Landor material for Count Julian. In 1811 he met Julia Thuillier, the daughter of a bankrupt Swiss banker, at a dance in Bath and immediately married her. They came to Florence in 1821, following a time in Wales. Here he acquired the Villa Gherardesca in San Domenico, now the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole and began the Imaginary Conversations. In his poetry he is feminist, especially his Pericles and Aspasia. But in 1835 he separated from his wife and children, though writing poems to his daughter Julia and his son Arnold. There is a lovely portrait by Trajan Wallis of Julia and her daughter and son. Trajan Wallis also erected the tomb for his father, likewise a painter, here. Walter Savage Landor returned to Florence in 1858 only to be rejected by his family, the Brownings befriending him in his last years from their love for his poetry. The young American Kate Field adored him. Algernon Charles Swinburne visited him admiringly, then wrote the epitaph quoted on his humble grave. It is his widow Julia Savage Landor’s statue by the Sicilian Michele Auteri Pomar that we saw on the tomb of their eldest son, Arnold Savage Landor, though she is buried in the Allori Cemetery. Present with us today are the widow of Dr John Landor, Professor Mary Landor, and the descendants of Julia’s Julia’s Julia, the Conti Negroni Bentivoglio of Modena and Vercelli.

Now at the statue’s base

lie the remains of the great poet’s son Walter Savage Landor II, the grandson, A. Henry Savage Landor, and Dr John Landor, likewise a descendant, the poet’s family reconciled within this ‘English’ Cemetery’s beautiful oval.

Per il dramma in versi Count Julian (Conte Julian) trasse ispirazione dalla sua esperienza in Spagna dove combattè con le sue proprie risorse contro Napoleone. Nel 1811 conosce ad un ballo Julia Thuillier, figlia di un banchiere svizzero finito in bancarotta e subito la sposa. Essi giungono a Firenze nel 1821, dopo un periodo trascorso in Galles. A San Domenico di Fiesole acquista la Villa Gherardesca, ora Scuola di Musica di Fiesole ed inizia a scrivere Imaginary Conversations (Conversazioni immaginarie). Nella sua poesia si rivela un poeta femminista, in particolare ciò si coglie nel suo Pericles and Aspasia (Pericle e Aspasia). Separatosi dalla moglie e dai figli nel 1835 continua tuttavia a scrivere poesie che dedica ed invia alla figlia Julia e al figlio Arnold. Un bellissimo dipinto ad olio, opera di Trajan Wallis, ritrae Julia Savage Landor con la figlia Julia ed il figlio Arnold. Il padre di Trajan Wallis, anch’egli pittore, ha trovato sepoltura in questo cimitero. Walter Savage Landor ritornò a Firenze nel 1858 ma subì il rifiuto da parte della sua famiglia. I Browning che amarono profondamente la sua poesia e a lui furono legati da profonda amicizia lo soccorsero negli ultimi difficili anni della sua vita. Algernon Charles Swinburne pieno di ammirazione giunse a Firenze in visita e scrisse per lui il bellissimo epitaffio che oggi possiamo leggere sulla sua umile tomba. Sulla tomba di Arnold Savage Landor, figlio primogenito del poeta, anch’egli qui sepolto, ammiriamo la statua della madre Julia Savage Landor, opera dello scultore palermitano Michele Auteri Pomar, ma Julia Savage Landor riposa al Cimitero ‘agli Allori’. Siamo lieti della presenza a questa cerimonia di numerosi discendenti di Walter Savage Landor e Julia Savage Landor. Ai piedi di questo monumento riposano ora il secondogenito di Walter Savage Landor, che porta il suo stesso nome, il nipote A. Henry Savage Landor e il Dottor John Landor. La famiglia del poeta è qui riconciliata nell’ovale del bellissimo Cimitero ‘degli Inglesi’.

Musica: Adagio dalla VI Sonata del Pastor Fido di Vivaldi

This passage in Gebir where the sea-nymph offers a reward was admired by all, especially the poet Shelley.

But I have sinuous shells, of pearly hue
Within, and they that lustre have imbibed
In the sun's palace porch, where when unyoked
His chariot-wheel stands midway in the wave;
Shake one and it awakens, then apply
Its polisht lips to your attentive ear,
And it remembers its august abodes,
And murmurs as the ocean there.

Il passo in Gebir dove la nereide offre in dono delle conchiglie al pastore Tamar è un passo da tutti ammirato, in particolare da Shelley.

Ho conchiglie a spirale, dal cuore
di perla, imbevute del bagliore di luce
Nel portico del palazzo del sole, dove staccata dal giogo
La ruota del suo cocchio
Riposa a metà nell’onda;
Scuoti una conchiglia e si desta, avvicina
I lucenti suoi bordi al sollecito tuo orecchio,
Ricorda essa le auguste sue dimore,
E come l’oceano mormora.

Walter Savage Landor strongly defended the Florentine couple who became Protestant, Francesco and Rosa Madiai, writing his last Imaginary Conversation about their imprisonment. Their crime, reading the Bible in Italian. Rosa Madiai is buried beside the tomb of Arnold Savage Landor.

Walter Savage Landor difese con forza Francesco e Rosa Madiai che si convertirono al protestantesimo e scrisse di loro e della loro condanna al carcere nella sua ultima Imaginary Conversation. Il loro crimine fu quello di aver letto la Bibbia in italiano. Rosa Madiai riposa accanto al sepolcro di Arnold Savage Landor.

Walter Savage Landor’s quatrains are exquisite.

In 1909 the lines of his poem on Rose Aylmer were placed on her tomb in Calcutta.

Ah what avails the sceptred race,
Ah what the form divine!
What every virtue, every grace!
Rose Aylmer, all were thine.
Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes
May weep, but never see,
A night of memories and of sighs
I consecrate to thee.

Le quartine di Walter Savage Landor sono mirabili.

Nel 1909 i versi che il poeta compose nel 1799 per la sua musa Rose Aylmer sono stati posti come epitaffio sulla tomba di lei a Calcutta.

Ah, a cosa serve la razza imperiale,
La divina forma!
Ogni virtù e grazia!
Tutto ciò era in te, Rose Aylmer.
Questi occhi che ti vegliano, Rose Aylmer,
Possono piangerti ma non vederti.
Una notte consacro a te
Di memorie e sospiri.

And this one my favourite:

Death stands above me, whispering low
I know not what into my ear:
Of his strange language all I know
Is there is not a word of fear.

E questa quartina è la mia favorita.

Aleggia su di me la morte, bisbiglia lieve
Non so cosa al mio orecchio:
Della sua lingua straniera tutto ciò che so
E’ che non c’è una parola di paura.

Musica: Sarabanda di J. S. Bach

II. The Writers: Their Books, Their Tombs

We celebrate today 180 years of the existence of this cemetery and its first burial, of the fifteen year old son of the Swiss Pastor, Jean David Marc Gonin. Signor Gerardo Kraft, President of the Swiss Evangelical Reformed Church, will carry to his tomb his portrait, sent to us by the family’s descendants in Paris. Piero Bazzanti has made him as if eighteen on his tomb, the portrait by Solomon Counis, also buried here, makes him as if twenty-two.

II. Gli scrittori: i loro libri, i loro sepolcri

Oggi ricordiamo e celebriamo anche il 180° anniversario dell’istituzione del Cimitero Porta a’ Pinti detto “degli Inglesi”. Jean David Marc Gonin, primogenito quindicenne del Pastore svizzero Jean Pierre Gonin, fu il primo a trovare sepoltura in questo cimitero. La sua tomba fu eseguita nella bottega di Piero Bazzanti. Il Signor Gerardo Kraft, Presidente della Chiesa Evangelica Riformata Svizzera, porterà alla sua tomba una foto del ritratto di lui, dono dei discendenti che vivono a Parigi. Il monumento di Piero Bazzanti lo rappresenta diciottenne, il ritratto di lui ventiduenne è opera di Solomon Counis. Anch’egli riposa in questo cimitero.

Tombs and paintings, poems and books, outlast our mortal bodies, carrying memories that converse with the future, across centuries. They tell stories. They are the Greek Anthology, they are Edgar Lee Master’s Spoon River Anthology, but giving the story of Florence and her foreigners, rather than of St Louis and her Americans, of Athens and her citizens and slaves.

Le tombe e i libri sopravvivono a noi fatti di involucro mortale, sono memoria che conversa con il tempo futuro lungo i secoli. Sono l’Antologia palatina, sono l’Antologia di Spoon River. Gli epitaffi raccontano la storia di Firenze e degli stranieri che nell’Ottocento elessero l’amata città a loro dimora.

To honour our poets, our writers, we now will bring their books to their tombs. I will hand to persons books who will at the end of this discourse carry them to the respective tombs, reading there the title page of one of them and perhaps a selection, next bringing them to the back room of the library where we will place them in display cases for all to see.

Per rendere omaggio ad alcuni degli scrittori che qui hanno trovato sepoltura consegno ad alcuni di voi dei volumi da porre sui loro sepolcri. Ognuno di voi leggerà il frontespizio di uno dei libri di ciascun autore.

Musica: Danza ungherese di Brahms

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

On Walter Savage Landor’s newly-restored tomb are written Swinburne’s lines:

La tomba di Walter Savage Landor è stata recentemente restaurata. Swinburne compose il suo epitaffio.

IN MEMORY OF/ WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR/ BORN 30th OF JANUARY 1775/ DIED 17th OF SEPTEMBER 1864/ AND THOU HIS FLORENCE TO THY TRUST/ RECEIVE AND KEEP/ KEEP SAFE HIS DEDICATED DUST/ HIS SACRED SLEEP/ SO SHALL THY LOVERS COME FROM FAR/ MIX WITH THY NAME/ MORNING STAR WITH EVENING STAR/ HIS FAULTLESS FAME/ A.G. SWINBURNE/

IN MEMORIA DI WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR NATO IL 30 GENNAIO 1775 MORTO IL 17 SETTEMBRE 1864 – E TU LA SUA FIRENZE CURA, ACCOGLI, SERBA LA SUA DONATA POLVERE, IL SUO SACRO SONNO. DA LONTANO GIUNGANO I TUOI AMANTI PER CONFONDERSI CON IL NOME TUO, FIRENZE, E LA PURA FAMA DI LUI COSI’ COME LA STELLA DEL MATTINO CON LA STELLA DEL VESPRO. A. C. SWINBURNE

Count General Negroni Bentivoglio, descendant of Walter Savage Landor, will carry the books to his tomb. Pastore Mario Marziale, of the Swiss Evangelical Reformed Church, instead, will carry the volume with the Imaginary Conversation about Rosa Madiai to her tomb. The Madiai’s imprisonment was because, as Italians, they were forbidden to read the Bible. In this Protestant Cemetery countless tombs quote from the Bible in many alphabets and numerous languages. This is the place of the Book and of Freedom.

Il Conte Generale Negroni Bentivoglio, discendente della famiglia Savage Landor, porrà i suoi libri sulla sua tomba. Il Pastore Mario Marziale della Chiesa Evangelica Riformata Svizzera, porrà sulla tomba di Rosa Madiai uno dei volumi di Imaginary Conversations. I Madiai subirono l’umiliazione della condanna e del carcere perché come italiani era loro proibito leggere la Bibbia. In questo Cimitero Protestante innumerevoli iscrizioni sepolcrali citano passi tratti dalla Bibbia in molti alfabeti e diverse lingue. E’ un luogo della memoria, del Libro dei libri, e della libertà.

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s tomb, however, lacks her name, her birth date, her poetry, her portrait, only giving her initials, her death date, and the sculptor’s name who executed the similarly anonymous design of Frederic Lord Leighton. Leighton insisted on a broken slave shackle being placed on the tomb to honour Elizabeth’s poetry against slavery.

Sulla tomba di Elizabeth Barrett Browning manca il suo nome, manca la data di nascita e la sua effige. Possiamo leggere solo le sue iniziali EBB, la data di morte, e il nome dello scultore che esegui il sarcofago su disegno di Frederic Lord Leighton, anch’egli anonimo. Leighton volle sulla tomba della poetessa una catena spezzata in omaggio alla sua poesia che porta il segno del suo grande disprezzo per ogni forma di schiavitù.

E.B.B./ OB.1861.// FRANCESCO GIOVANNOZZI FECE.

Maria Grazia Beverini Del Santo, President of the Lyceum Club and of the Fondazione il Fiore, will carry to Elizabeth’s newly-restored tomb her books, especially the Sonnets from the Portuguese translated into countless other languages, and her epic poem in nine books, Aurora Leigh.

Io porterò i suoi libri sul suo sepolcro restaurato nel 2006, in particolare i suoi Sonnets from the Portuguese che sono stati tradotti in un’infinità di lingue, ed il suo poema epico in nove libri Aurora Leigh.

ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH

Our third great poet is Arthur Hugh Clough whose poetry was published posthumously by his wife, Blanche, Florence Nightingale’s cousin, and his sister, Anne Jemima Clough, who founded Newnham College. Like Walter Savage Landor he had gone to Rugby School, Matthew Arnold composing Thyrsis for his epitaph. At Oxford Clough attended Balliol, winning the Oriel College Fellowship.

Il nostro terzo illustre poeta è Arthur Hugh Clough. La sua opera poetica è stata pubblicata postuma dalla moglie, Blanche, cugina di Florence Nightingale, e dalla sorella, Anne Jemima Clough, fondatrice del Newnham College. Così come Walter Savage Landor compì gli studi alla Rugby School. Matthew Arnold compose l’elegia Thyrsis in memoria dell’amico. Ad Oxford frequentò il Balliol College, e fu Fellow dell’Oriel College.

ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH/ SOMETIME FELLOVV/ OF ORIEL COLLEGE OXFORD/ DIED AT FLORENCE/ NOVEMBER 13 MDCCCLXI/ AGED 42/ THE LAST FAREVVELL OF/ HIS SORROVVING VVIFE AND SISTER/

Mark Roberts of the Harold Acton Library of the British Institute of Florence will carry the volume of his poems to his tomb. It came to us as a gift from Walter Savage Landor’s Warwick. The tomb was restored last year by the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Firenze to celebrate European Heritage, because the design of the winged globe on the tomb, desired by Blanche Clough, was taken from Champollion’s book on Egypt and Nubia owned by the Marchese Torrigiani.

Mark Roberts della Harold Acton Library del British Institute di Firenze porrà sulla sua tomba il volume delle sue poesie, dono della Walter Savage Landor Society di Warwick. La tomba è stata restaurata lo scorso anno dal Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Firenze in occasione delle Giornate Europee del patrimonio. Il disegno del motivo egizio del disco solare alato che compare sulla tomba è stato tratto per volere di Blanche Clough dal volume di Champollion sull’Egitto e sulla Nubia posseduto dal Marchese Torrigiani.

ISA BLAGDEN

A great friend of Walter Savage Landor and of the Brownings was Isa Blagden of Bellosguardo. She, too, was a poet. And she and the poet Owen Meredith wrote books about each other, she a novel, he a poem, Owen Meredith being the pen-name for Lord Lytton, Viceroy of Indian.

Isa Blagden grande amica di Walter Savage Landor e dei Browning ospitò molti degli stranieri che giungevano a Firenze nella Villa Brichieri a Bellosguardo. Anche Isa Blagden fu poeta. Ella e il poeta Owen Meredith scrissero libri sul loro amore, Isa Blagden una autobiografia romanzata, Agnes Tremorne, e Owen Meredith un poema, Lucile, su di lei. Owen Meredith, pseudonimo di Lord Lytton, fu Vicerè delle Indie.

ISABELLA [Cross on Flower Garland] BLAGDEN/ BORN . . . DIED . . . 1873/ THY WILL BE DONE . . ./

Corinna Gestri will carry her volume of poems to her tomb.

Corinna Gestri porrà il volume delle sue poesie sul sepolcro.

POEMS/ BY THE LATE/ ISA BLAGDEN/ WITH A MEMOIR/ WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS/ EDINBURGH AND LONDON/ MDCCCLXXIII

FRANCES TROLLOPE

Frances Trollope was a writer of novels and of travels, and of the first anti-slave novel, Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw, a book no longer in print but better than Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Not far from her tomb and that of Elizabeth Barrett Browning is the tomb of Nadezhda, who came at 14, a Black slave from Nubia, and whose story is told on her tomb in Cyrillic.

Frances Trollope autrice di romanzi e di letteratura di viaggio. Suo è il primo romanzo contro la schiavitù Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw, un libro ormai fuori stampa ma più degno di nota di Uncle Tom’s Cabin (La Capanna di Zio Tom) di Harriet Beecher Stow. Non lontano dalla sua tomba e dal sarcofago di Elizabeth Barrett Browning troviamo la tomba di Nadezhda, una schiava nera che giunse a Firenze dalla Nubia a quattordici anni d’età. La sua storia è narrata in cirillico sul basamento della bellissima croce russa.

FRANCESCAE TROLLOPE/ QUOD MORTALE FUIT/ HIC IACET/ . . . / MEMORIA/ NULLUM MARMOR QUAERIT/ APUD STAPLETON/ IN AGRO SOMERSET ANGLORUM/ A.D. 1780 NATA/ FLORENTIAE/ TUMULUM A.D.1863/ NACTA EST

Debora Spini of Syracuse University will carry her anti-slavery novel, Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw, to her tomb.

Debora Spini della Syracuse University porrà il romanzo Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw sulla sua tomba.

THEODOSIA TROLLOPE

Theodosia Garrow Trollope, Frances’ daughter-in-law, and like Isa, part Jewish, part East Indian, wrote poetry, essays, translations.

Theodosia Garrow Trollope, nuora di Frances Trollope, e come Isa Blagden, in parte ebrea, e in parte le sue origini sono da ricercare nelle Indie Orientali, scrisse poesia, saggi, e tradusse dall’italiano in inglese.

/ THEODOSIAE TROLLOPE/ T. ADOLFI TROLLOPE CONIUGIS/ QUOD MORTALE FUIT/ HIC IACET/ OBITUM EIUS FLEVERUNT OMNES/ QUANTUM AUTEM FERRI MERUIT/ VIR EUGUI SCRIPTORES/ SCIT SOLUS/ JOSEFE GARROW ARMr FILIA/ APUD TORQEW IN AGRORUM DEVON ANGLORUM NATA/ FLORENTIAE NOMEN AGENS LUSTRUM/ AD PLURES DIVINAE . . ./ MENSES APRILES A.D. 1865/

Lacking any of her books Alyson Price will take to her tomb her husband Thomas Adolphus Trollope’s autobiography, What I Remember - where he remembers her.

Non abbiamo alcun volume dei suoi libri e Alyson Price le renderà omaggio ponendo sulla sua tomba l’autobiografia What I Remember del marito Thomas Adolphus Trollope, dove egli la ricorda.

MARY SOMERVILLE

A great woman writer of science, Mary Somerville, buried her husband William here, and in her honour we have just now restored his tomb.

Grande scrittrice di testi scientifici, brillante astronoma e matematica, Mary Somerville, diede qui sepoltura al marito, William. Per rendere omaggio a lei è stato restaurato il bellissimo sepolcro del marito.

WILLIAM SOMERVILLE/ ELDEST SON OF THE HISTORIAN OF QUEEN ANNE/ BORN AT MINTO ROXBURGHSHIRE/ 22 APRIL 1771/ DIED AT FLORENCE 15 JUNE 1860/ GOD WILL REDEEM MY LIFE FROM/ THE POWER OF THE GRAVE 49 PSALM/

Mary Somerville herself is buried in Naples beneath a fine statue of her by the then twenty-year-old Calabrian Francesco Jerace. She had discovered two planets and taught Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron’s daughter, mathematics. Ada, then, with Charles Babbage, invented the computer, she suggesting to him the use of Jacquard loom cards with holes punched in them and the binomial theorem.

Mary Somerville ha trovato invece sepoltura a Napoli sotto la statua che la rappresenta, opera giovanile dello scultore calabrese Francesco Jerace. Mary Somerville scoprì due pianeti ed insegnò matematica ad Ada Lovelace, figlia di Lord Byron. Successivamente Ada e Charles Babbage idearono il computer. Fu lei a suggerire l’utilizzo delle schede perforate del telaio Jacquard e del sistema numerico binario.

Lyn Newton from Scotland will carry two of her many books to her husband’s grave.

Lyn Newton, scozzese, per rendere a lei omaggio porrà due dei suoi numerosi libri sulla tomba del marito.

ON/ THE CONNEXION/ OF THE PHYSICAL SCIENCES/ BY MARY SOMERVILLE/ FOURTH EDITION/ LONDON:/ JOHN MURRAY, ALBERMARLE STREET/ MDCCCXXXVI

PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS, From Early Life to Old Age,/ OF/ MARY SOMERVILLE,/ WITH SELECTIONS FROM HER CORRESPONDENCE,/ BY HER DAUGHTER,/ MARTHA SOMERVILLE/ BOSTON:/ ROBERTS BROTHERS,/ 1874

MARY YOUNG

Another woman writer, this time of religious history, buried here, is Mary Young.

Ha qui inoltre trovato sepoltura Mary Young, anch’essa scrittrice, autrice della biografia su Aonio Paleario, umanista e riformatore religioso.

HOLD [Anchor] FAST/ TO THE MEMORY OF/ MARY YOUNG/ DAUGHTER OF THE LATE/ JOHN STROTHER ANCRUM OF ROXBURGH/ AND WIDOW OF THE REV. ROBERT YOUNG DD MINISTER OF THE/ SCOTS CHURCH LONDON WALL/ ENDOWED WITH SUPERIOR AND REFINED INTELLECT/ FIRM CHARACTER AND ARDENT AFFECTIONS/ SHE WAS BY GOD'S GRACE ENABLED TO SPEND HER WHOLE LIFE IN HIS SERVICE/ AND IN SE. . E . .ING EFFORTS FOR THE GOOD OF OTHERS/ HER FAITH WAS SIMPLE AND UNWAVERING/ SUPPORTED BY THIS FAITH AND CHEERED BY THE HOPE OF GLORY/ SHE ENDURED WITH FORTITUDE THE DECAY OF HER EARTHLY/ TABERNACLE AND JOYFULLY WELCOMED THE SUMMONS/ WHICH CALLED HER HENCE/ ON THE 27 DAY OF SEP 1867/ AGED 77/ AMEN. SO LET IT BE [Books and Palms]/

Il monumento reca anche un’iscrizione sepolcrale in italiano.
On the other side.

/ QUI RIPOSANO LE SPOGLIE MORTALI/ DI / MARIA YOUNG/ VISSE MOLTI ANNI IN ITALIA/ RACCOLSE NEGLI ARCHIVI NOTIZIE STORICHE/ CON CUI COMPOSE UN LIBRO ASSAI STIMATO/ LA VITA DI AONIO PALEARIO E I SUOI TEMPI/ DIMORO’ LONGAMENTE IN PISA DOVE EDIFICO’/ UNA CHIESA EVANGELICA E UNA SCUOLA/ SOCCORSE SEMPRE I POVERI AMO’ LO STUDIO E SI/ . . SE PER IL RISORGIMENTO DELLA LIBERTA’ ITALIANA/ MORIVA IN FIRENZE ALL'ETA’ DI 77 ANNI/ IL 27 SETTEMBRE 1867/ FRA LE BRACCIA DELLA INCONSOLABILE FIGLIA/ ALLA SUA CARA MEMORIA CONSACRONO QUESTA PIETRA/ CARLO E ROBINIA MATTEUCCI/

D.D. Ramsden will carry to her tomb a volume of the book she wrote.

D.D. Ramsden porrà sulla sua tomba un solo volume di questa opera.

THE LIFE AND TIMES/ OF/ AONIO PALEARIO/ OR A HISTORY OF/ THE ITALIAN REFORMERS IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY/ PRESENTED BY ORIGINAL LETTERS AND UNEDITED DOCUMENTS/ BY M. YOUNG/ “Their blood is shed/ In confirmation of the noblest claim,/ Our claim to feed upon immortal truth,/ to walk with God, to be divinely free,/ To soar, and to anticipate the skies”/ COWPER’S/ Task./ LONDON/ BELL AND DALDU, 186 FLEET STREET./ 1860

THOMAS SOUTHWOOD SMITH

Southwood Smith with Lord Ashley, who became the Earl of Shaftsbury, wrote against slavery and against the abuse of women and children in mines and factories, their Report changing England’s laws.

Southwood Smith e Lord Ashley, poi Conte di Shaftsbury, nei loro scritti si espressero fermamente contro la schiavitù e lo sfruttamento delle donne e dei bambini nelle fabbriche e nelle miniere. Il loro lavoro fu determinante e portò ad una riforma delle leggi in Inghilterra.

In Memory of SOUTHWOOD SMITH, Physician/ who through the promotion of sanitary/ reform in the principles of which he was the first to discover and through other philanthropic and literary labour was distinguished as a Benefactor of Mankind/ Born at Martock, Somersetshire/ Dec 21, 1788, Died at Florence/ Dec 10, 1861// + THEN SHALL THE RIGHTEOUS SHINE FORTH AS THE SUN IN THE KINGDOM/ OF THEIR FATHER/ MATTHEW XII v.43// [Below sculpted portrait medallion] / Ages shall honor, in their hearts enshrined, thee, SOUTHWOOD SMITH, Physician of Mankind/ Bringer of Air, Light, Health into the home/ Of the rich Poor of happier years to come/ Leigh Hunt/
aa a

Elizabeth Barrett Browning with Richard Horne wrote a essay on them both in New Spirit of the Age which Giorgio Nencetti will carry to the tomb.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning e Richard Horne scrissero un saggio su di loro in The New Spirit of the Age. Per rendere omaggio a tutti loro porteremo questo volume alla sua tomba.

ROBERT DAVIDSOHN
Robert Davidsohn, from Gdansk and Jewish, is the great historian of medieval Florence.

Robert Davidsohn, tedesco di Danzica ed ebreo, è il grande storico della Firenze medievale.

COMM. DOTT. PROF./ ROBERT DAVIDSOHN/ 26.4.1853-17.9.1937/

ROBERT DAVIDSOHN/ STORIA DI FIRENZE/ SANSONI – FIRENZE/ 1977

Alba Antuono of the Biblioteca Comunale will carry his volumes of the Storia di Firenze to his tomb.
Alba Antuono della Biblioteca Comunale porrà i suoi volumi sulla Storia di Firenze sulla sua tomba,

Laura Micol Fisher will carry Shakespeare’s Plays to her great grandparents’ tomb for they are Shakespeare’s ‘last’ descendants.
Laura Micol Fisher porra il volume delle Opere di William Shakespeare sulla tomba dei suoi bisnonni, gli ultimi discendenti di Shakespeare.

ARNOLD HENRY SAVAGE LANDOR

And Arnold Henry Savage Landor is the Florentine-born writer, painter, explorer and inventor grandson of Walter Savage Landor. We ask Piero Fusi to carry his book, Everywhere to Henry Savage Landor’s new grave and read there its title page.

A. Henry Savage Landor, primogenito di Charles Savage Landor, e nipote del poeta Walter Savage Landor, nacque a Firenze. Dotato scrittore, pittore, esploratore, ideatore. Piero Fusi porrà il volume della sua opera autobiografica Everywhere sulla sua nuova tomba, e li leggerà il frontespizio del libro.

EVERYWHERE/ THE MEMOIRS OF AN EXPLORER/ By A. HENRY SAVAGE-LANDOR/ ILLUSTRATED/ T.FISHER UNWIN LTD/ LONDON: ADELPHI TERRACE// I DEDICATE THIS BOOK/ TO MY SISTER/ ELFRIDA/ 1924

JOHN LANDOR

While Mary Gibbons Landor will carry the book by her husband, Dr John Landor, to his new grave in this Swiss-owned so-called ‘English’ Cemetery and read there its title page.

Mary Gibbons Landor porrà un testo del marito, Dr John Landor, sulla sua tomba e leggerà poi il frontespizio.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s first line to Aurora Leigh is from the Bible. It states ‘Of writing many books there is no end’.

Il poema epico Aurora Leigh di Elizabeth Barrett Browning si apre con queste parole bibliche ‘Di scriver libri non si vedrà mai la fine’.

Musica: Aria dal Flauto Magic

ORAL HISTORY, CYBER HISTORY

2007-09-28T12:43:00.000+02:00

The Swiss-owned so-called 'English' Cemetery in Florence has embarked on what is not so much an oral history project as a cyber one. Because we have put the catalogue of the tombs on the web, to be found at http://www.florin.ms/cemetery1.html through http://www.florin.ms/cemetery4.html, the descendants of those buried here find us from as far away as Africa and Australia, visiting us, sending further archival materials, and funding the restoration of their tombs.

Our very first tomb is very beautiful, very romantic, very sad, of the young fifteen year old son, Jean David Marc Gonin, of the Swiss Pastor, Jean Pierre Gonin. The Cemetery lists three members of this family:

^* ANTOINE GONIN/ SVIZZERA/ Gonin/ Antonio/ Giovanni/ Svizzera/ Firenze/ 15 Febbraio/ 1872/ Anni 54/ 1199/ Antoine Gonin, Genève, Suisse, fils de Jean Gonin, et de Louise, née Lafond/ Antoine Gonin/ D25I

^*° JEAN DAVID MARC GONIN / SVIZZERA/ Gonin/ Giovanni/ Giovanni/ Svizzera/ Firenze/ 17 Gennaio/ 1828/ / 1/ JEAN DAVID MARC GONIN/ NE A GENEVE LE 28 AVRIL 1812/ MORT A FLORENCE LE 17 JANVIER 1828/ JEUNE ET . . . D'AVENIR/ DONT LA TOMBE SOUARIT DANS . . . /N° 1/
N° 1 Le dix neuf Janvier, mil-huit-cent-vingt huit John Gonin
fils de Jean Gonin Président de Consistoire et de Louise
née Lafond, né . . .
mort à Florence, le dix sept Janvier, mil huit cent vingt huit
a reçu les honneures del la Sepulture en présence de Louis Wolf,
Giacomo Bizenzi, Louis Recordon et de plusieurs autres membres
du Consistoire . --- . En foi de quoi j'ai signé
Auguste Colomb Pasteur~
D25I/ Sculptor: Pietro Bazzanti: signature: P.BAZZANTI.F

Portrait of Jean David Marc Gonin painted 1834 by Salomon Guillaume Counis, as if at 22, instead of only 15, owned by descendants in Paris

^* JEAN PIERRE GONIN/ SVIZZERA/ Gonin/ Giovanni/ Pietro/ Svizzera/ Pignone/ 13 Luglio/ 1854/ Anni 71/ 544 / Jean Gonin, Genève, domicilié a Pignone près Florence, ancien negociant, agé de 72 ans, fils de Pierre Gonin/ Jean Pierre Gonin/ D25I

JEAN PIERRE GONIN (1783-1854). Of Huguenot origin, his grandfather was a French pastor and was martyred, his father grew up in exile in the Waldensian valleys, and he himself was born in Geneva, but came to Florence as a young man to engage in industry. His home was the clandestine meeting place for the Protestant group that in 1826 requested permission of the Grand Ducal government to open a chapel. A convinced Calvinist, he was the energetic and devoted president of the Consistory of the Evangelical Reformed Church, from 1827-1846. One of his children, Jean Marc (1812-1828), was the first person to be buried in the cemetery: two other sons Constantino and Antonio [Antoine] were long active in every initiative in favour of the Evangelical community.

Two other tombs with extant portraits of interest are those of Sarah McCalmont (http://www.florin.ms/cemetery3.html) and Mary Spencer Stanhope (http://www.florin.ms/cemetery4.html), in the latter case her father likewise painting her as the age she would have been had she lived. We believe that this can be a model for other cemeteries to follow and we are applying to the European Union for funds to train young people in gardening, stone restoration and webweaving to carry out this work in England, Iceland and Romania, sharing our European culture.

We are now at 1388 signatures on the web at http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/471134975,
'That the Swiss-owned, so-called 'English' Cemetery in Florence be kept open, be restored and be declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site', and with 3664 signatures in-house from our visitors, for a total of 5052 signatures. We have decided to keep them coming.

If you wish to donate to the Aureo Anello Association for the restoration of the 'English' Cemetery you can do so by a cheque made out to 'Aureo Anello' and posted to 'English' Cemetery, Piazzale Donatello 38, 50132 Florence, Italy; or through the Pay Pal 'Donate' button below, which can also be used for the CDs, for the hand-bound limited edition books or for the sculptures of Elizabeth and Robert's 'Clasped Hands' or tondos with their portraits (Amalia Ciardi Duprè's sculpture can also be found at http://www.florin.ms/amaliadupre.html), or some or all of these.

Sincerely,
Julia Bolton Holloway
Aureo Anello Association for the Library and Cemetery
Piazzale Donatello, 38
50132 FIRENZE, ITALY

THE WORLD COMES TO FLORENCE'S 'ENGLISH' CEMETERY

2007-07-20T08:32:00.001+02:00

Yesterday a couple from Brazil came, their print-out from the Cemetery website in hand, to see the tomb of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Already, we have made a point of collecting the Sonnets from the Portuguese in many languages, for EBB herself had initially sought to disguise her authorship of them, when Robert decided they should be published, as 'Sonnets from the Bosnian'. So I brought out my IPod and Rodrigo Araes Caldas Farias read Sonnet II. Here it is, PortuguesII in an mp3 file for you to hear. And here you can listen to all the Sonnets being read in English, EBBI (with first the sonnet to Hiram Powers' Greek Slave, Hiram Powers being also buried here), EBBII, EBBIII, EBBIV.

Our Belgian scholar, Nic Peeters, working on John Roddam Spencer Stanhope, who sculpted his daughter Mary's tomb which is here, was ecstatic at the beauty of the Sonnet read by that voice, in that language.

I am now reading texts by and about Walter Savage Landor in preparation for our celebration in October of this poet. Hear Gebir I and Gebir II. We have now created a website dedicated to WSL. Already, we have restored his tomb and Vieri Torrigiani Malaspina has had pomegranates planted by it,
,
by EBB's and by Arthur Hugh Clough's.

On the Giardino Torrigiani click here to see this magical garden in Florence, on the other side of the Arno, from which many of our plants had come in the nineteenth century. And imagine to yourself, Isa Blagden, Walter Savage Landor, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning, young Pen, all walking there under the coolness of its trees.

That was in July. It is now August 8, a day when the rain has been non-stop and I have been cleaning out drains clogged with cypress needles, and our only visitors a couple from New Zealand, he a Maori and descended from a Maori chief who signed the treaty with the White men. I mentioned to Peter Neville about the names of the Polynesians coming over in boats and he said he knew his genealogy and could recite it in Maori. So out came the IPod again and we recorded this account. Then, with the incessant rain, he gave us a poem by a Maori friend. He described him as a character, keeping his hearing aids in his pocket. Peter and I both wear hearing aids. Peter Neville also walks with a red and white cane. How honoured Florence is with our visitors.

In October our Swiss-owned so-called 'English' Cemetery shall be 180 years old and we are celebrating, celebrating all those buried here, but in particular the members of the Savage Landor family, as we have already celebrated EBB and Arthur Hugh Clough, having restored their tombs last year. A son and a grandson of Walter Savage Landor, also named Walter Savage Landor, and A. Henry Savage Landor, are no longer allowed to rest in peace in their family chapel in the Porte Sante Cemetery at San Miniato, so we are bringing them here to lay their bones at the feet of their statue of their mother and grandmother, Julia Savage Landor. Likewise another Landor descendant will have his ashes laid here. I should be most grateful for help with the funds for the following, a hand-cast bell at 200 euro to place on the wall inside the Cemetery to ring when closing it, funds to pay for mounting this and the two tondos of portraits of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning made by Amalia Ciardi Duprè, and funds to help with buying the plot for the Landor son and grandson's remains by Julia Savage Landor's statue.

We are now at 1383 signatures on the web at http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/471134975,
'That the Swiss-owned, so-called 'English' Cemetery in Florence be kept open, be restored and be declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site', and with 3572 signatures in-house from our visitors, for a total of 4955 signatures. We have decided to keep them coming.

If you wish to donate to the Aureo Anello Association for the restoration of the 'English' Cemetery you can do so by a cheque made out to 'Aureo Anello' and posted to 'English' Cemetery, Piazzale Donatello 38, 50132 Florence, Italy; or through the Pay Pal 'Donate' button below, which can also be used for the CDs, for the hand-bound limited edition books or for the sculptures of Elizabeth and Robert's 'Clasped Hands' or tondos with their portraits (Amalia Ciardi Duprè's sculpture can also be found here), or some or all of these.

Sincerely,
Julia Bolton Holloway
Aureo Anello Association for the Library and Cemetery
Piazzale Donatello, 38
50132 FIRENZE, ITALY

NEW/OLD TECHNOLOGIES

2007-06-15T08:33:00.000+02:00

I have sought for years to combine sound and sight in webweaving (for writing is our older technology, recording sound as sight). Now this use of sound is possible with an IPod and MP3 files. So I have been reading the work of our English Cemetery's great poet laureate, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and will next read those of her two companions and rivals, Walter Savage Landor and Arthur Hugh Clough, also buried here. The Elizabeth Barrett Browning readings are at

http://www.florin.ms/EBB1.mp3
for her sonnet on 'Hiram Powers' Greek Slave' (Hiram Powers is also buried here) and the Sonnets from the Portuguese
http://www.florin.ms/EBB2.mp3
http://www.florin.ms/EBB3.mp3
http://www.florin.ms/EBB4.mp3
and at
http://www.florin.ms/EBB5.mp3
for The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point.
Her poetry about Florence is discussed and given in these files:
http://www.florin.ms/EBBFlor1.mp3
http://www.florin.ms/EBBFlor2.mp3
http://www.florin.ms/EBBFlor3.mp3.
I recommend listening to these with the essay at http://www.florin.ms/ebbflor1.html, etc., with texts and images. I plan next to record her sprightly Lady Geraldine's Courtship, in which she had proposed to Robert, and the nine-book epic/novel, Aurora Leigh.
Enjoy.

We are now at 1366 signatures on the web at http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/471134975,
'That the Swiss-owned, so-called 'English' Cemetery in Florence be kept open, be restored and be declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site', and with 3471 signatures in-house from our visitors, for a total of 4837 signatures. We have decided to keep them coming.

If you wish to donate to the Aureo Anello Association for the restoration of the 'English' Cemetery you can do so by a cheque made out to 'Aureo Anello' and posted to 'English' Cemetery, Piazzale Donatello 38, 50132 Florence, Italy; or through the Pay Pal 'Donate' button below, which can also be used for the CDs, for the hand-bound limited edition books or for the sculptures of Elizabeth and Robert's 'Clasped Hands' or tondos with their portraits (Amalia Ciardi Duprè's sculpture can also be found at http://www.florin.ms/amaliadupre.html), or some or all of these.

Sincerely,
Julia Bolton Holloway
Aureo Anello Association for the Library and Cemetery
Piazzale Donatello, 38
50132 FIRENZE, ITALY

HOW TO CATALOGUE A CEMETERY: CASE STUDY OF FLORENCE'S SWISS-OWNED, SO-CALLED 'ENGLISH', MONUMENTAL CEMETERY

2007-06-06T14:54:00.000+02:00

Seven years ago I became Custodian of the Porta a' Pinti Cemetery, the Swiss-owned so-called 'English' Cemetery, in Florence. The Swiss had bought the land for it outside the Porta a' Pinti Gate from the Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1827. You can find it in Google Earth at Piazzale Donatello, Florence, Italy. It had been subject to neglect for more than a century following its 1877 closure caused by Giuseppe Poggi's destruction of the medieval city wall.

When I first came on the job I was asked to catalogue the tombs. All I then had was an alphabetical Register of burials drawn up in 1877. There was no map to the tombs. So I located them and transcribed their inscriptions. Of the more than 1,400 burials between 1827-1877 there are now less than a thousand extant tombs. After a year I was joined by an Italian woman scholar, and together we translate into our mother tongues this material, including those of the Proceedings of a City and Book international conference we organized with the Gabinetto Vieusseux on the Cemetery in 2004, publishing these on the Web at http://www.florin.ms/gimel.html.

Beginning with the alphabetical register I drew up a list on the Web, repeating its useful taxonomy. This is the format written on the flyleaf, the subsequent pages being cut down to render this visible and the columns entered accordingly, in Italian, by hand:

Cognome/ Nome/ Paternità / Patria/ Data della Morte/ Età/ Tomba

Because these are in Italian, English-speaking scholars searching the whereabouts of Hugh James Rose, the clergyman who initiated the Oxford Movement, could not find him. I did. He is listed as 'Ugo Giacomo Rose' and he is buried in a fine marble 'Scipio' tomb. So I took to giving the correct national form of the name in RED CAPITALS at the beginning of each entry, followed immediately by the nation of provenance in BLUE CAPITALS, and augmented the information in the Register.

Russian scholars assisted us with our Russian burials, consulting records in St Petersburg and at the Orthodox Church in Florence. An English scholar consulted the London Guildhall Library and Foreign Office records of English persons buried here. While the Swiss originally listed Poles as Russians, I separate them. I do the same with the English, giving whether they are Scots, Irish, Welsh, or Australian. The independent Swiss and Americans did not have a church that did double duty as a Civil Service organ of their governments so we lack double record keeping for their burials.

To these I have added the following further information, creating a key:

Key to Codes Used in Alphabetical Register:
V=damaged by vandalism to be repaired; ^=needing to be photographed; * =register and tomb checked against each other; ° =living descendants, relatives, researchers; § =further documentation in cemetery archives;/ BOLD CAPS, IN RED=FIRST NAME, (MAIDEN NAME), SURNAME/ IN BLUE=COUNTRY/COUNTRIES/;/normal type=1877 alphabetical register entry ending with tomb number, written in Italian/ 1844-1871/; additional information from 'Eglise Evangelique-Reformé de Florence Régistre des Morts', 2 vols, written in French/; / /=additional information, including codes GL=London Guildhall Library, PRO=Public Record Office, FO=Foreign Office, kindly supplied by Anthony Webb researching the English in Tuscany; Maquay Diaries=John Leland Maquay, Jr, Diaries, information kindly supplied by Alyson Price, Archivist, Harold Acton Library, Florence; Talalay=Michail Talalay, 'Tombe dei Russi nel Cimitero detto "degli Inglesi"', con l'assistenza di Gino Chelazzi, RC in Talalay=Registro del Cimitero, St Petersburg MKF in Talalay=Metrickesie Knigi Florencii, Libri parrochiali di Firenze, Chiesa Ortodossa; DND, NDNB, Dictionary of National Biography, New Dictionary of National Biography; Freeman=James A. Freeman, 'The Protestant Cemetery in Florence and Anglo-American Attitudes toward Italy, Marker 10 (1993), 219-243; Henderson=Philip Henderson, Lucca, has further information concerning family backgrounds/ [ ]=description of tomb]; BOLD (CAPS EXCEPT WHERE INSCRIPTION USES lowercase)=INSCRIPTION ON TOMB/; A1A, etc. coordinates indicating tomb position in cemetery/ tomb sculptor, signature of sculptor on tomb.

During the next few years more registers came to light. (It had been said they had been lost in the 1966 Flood when I had inquired concerning them.) These earlier and contemporaneous registers were being written out in French, and meticulously gave the mother's maiden name, the canton of birth, and the occupation of the one being buried. So we enter all three forms of the names, in English, in Italian, in French, to aid in retrieval. We remind Anglo-Saxon users that in Italy wives are known by their maiden, not married names.

Last of all, we received the Belle Arti records telling us which sculptor created which tomb. The sculptors of our tombs, two of whom, Americans, came to be buried with us, number amongst the most famous of the nineteenth century. I have written a separate essay on these sculptors at http://www.florin.ms/sculptors.html.

Essential for this work is a good digital camera, a computer, and a website, as well as files for the incoming information concerning the burials of different nationalities from descendants and scholars, again a taxonomy, this time geographical, ours consisting of folders on the English, the Swiss, the Russian (Russian and Polish), the American, the Continental (French, Dutch, German, Swedish, Danish, Finnish, Latvian, Hungarian), and the Australian burials.

This research is ongoing. The entire catalogue is now placed on the web in four files at http://www.florin.ms/cemetery1.html, etc. to http://www.florin.ms/cemetery4.html. Descendants from as far away as Australia and Africa then find their ancestors. Daily, I get e-mails with further information and/or queries, many having found these entries through searching with Google. Sometimes photographs taken in 1960 can arrive from Australia enabling us to replace lost inscriptions from tombs that are now vandalized. Or fine portraits are sent to us of those buried here for our archives. UNESCO's conference on information technology and museums suggested I also weblog, which I do at http://piazzaledonatello.blogspot.com. What we now have is a global and interactive oral history project using the latest information technology centred on one small but famous historic cemetery in Florence. Our taxonomies tend to use the alphabet, itself an 'IT' (Information Technology) invention from millennia ago, and geographical space, as well as enabling genealogical and biographical research in time. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography has praised this work as most useful to them. We have the Swiss historian Jacques Augustin Galiffe and his family buried here and he with Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi pioneered the study of archives for genealogical writing and history, to be followed in turn by Robert Davidsohn, also buried here, whose monumental Storia di Firenze, based on archival work is magnificent. Also, Mary Somerville buried her husband William here, and she, with no university education, had discovered two planets, her books on science being used as textbooks at Cambridge University, and she taught Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron's daughter, mathematics. Ada Lovelace, in turn, assisted Charles Babbage in inventing the computer, she suggesting to him the use of Jacquard loom cards with holes punched in them and the binomial theorem, of using zeros and ones.

Because so many of our burials are of famous writers, in particular, women as well as men, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Walter Savage Landor, Arthur Hugh Clough, Frances Trollope, Theodosia Trollope, Isa Blagden, Richard Hildreth, we also have a library which includes their writings and research concerning the Abolition of Slavery, a concern they deeply shared. We have as well six participants in the Battle of Waterloo and many friends of Florence Nightingale. We even have the tomb of the former Black slave who came to Florence at 14 from Nubia and was baptised in a Russian Orthodox family with the name 'Speranza, 'Hope', her story told on the marble in Cyrillic letters. We key the tombs in the catalogue of the cemetery to the books in the library's on-line catalogue and vice versa. Likewise, we have catalogued the remaining plants (the Cemetery had all been put to weedkiller), and we plan the cemetery's restoration as the beautiful garden it once was, restoring it from old photographs, Victorian travel book accounts, diaries and oral information: http://www.florin.ms/landscape.html.

For a cemetery is a library, an archive, written on marble. Having already edited the poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (our most famous burial) for Penguin, I now use this Cemetery and its archive as primary material to teach myself and others such ancient and modern archival skills necessary to learn how to make these dead bones, as in Ezekiel, come back to life for our visitors, and virtually on the web. The catalogue, the taxonomy, is to assist in finding them. Each tomb has a human story that can now be unlocked, told and shared with all.

Let me give you one. One day two cousins came, seeking the tomb of their ancestress. She had died in childbirth, as so many women did in the nineteenth century. Likewise their babies. So I asked about the baby. 'Oh he's our ancestor, too', they explained, telling how Sarah McCalmont's Anglican clergyman husband had brought the motherless bairn and its wetnurse home to England, at one point in France pushing the carriage up a hill. Pietro Bazzanti would have been paid handsomely for this tomb with its many inscribed letters. I asked whether there was a portrait of her. And here she is, straight out of the pages of a Jane Austen novel.

*°§SARAH McCALMONT/ ENGLAND / Calmont/ Sara/ / Inghilterra/ Firenze/ 24 Agosto/ 1836/ Anni 27/ 140/ GL23773/4 N° 49, Rev Knapp/ [°=Christopher Stuart Rawlins, Bristol, England], Extant Portrait/ See Calmont/ [On urn] JESUS WEPT [On square column's four sides] BENEATH IS DEPOSITED ALL THAT WAS MORTAL OF/ SARAH/ THE BELOVED WIFE OF T. RD THOMAS MCCALMONT/ OF WIMBOURNE MINSTER DORSET/ DIED AT FLORENCE/ IN CHILDBIRTH/ AUGUST 24TH 1836/ AGED 28 YEARS/ BUT I WOULD NOT HAVE YOU TO BE IGNORANT, BRETHREN, / CONCERNING THEM WHICH ARE ASLEEP THAT YE SORROW / NOT EVEN AS OTHERS/ WHICH HAVE NO HOPE FOR/ IF WE BELIEVE THAT JESUS DIED AND ROSE AGAIN EVEN SO/ THEM ALSO WHICH SLEEP IN JESUS WILL GOD BRING/ WITH HIM 1 THESS IV.13/ AND THEY SHALL BE MINE, SAITH THE LORD OF HOSTS/ IN THE DAY WHEN I MAKE UP MY JEWELS. MAL 3.17 / BLESSED BE GOD EVEN THE FATHER OF OUR LORD JESUS/ CHRIST THE FATHER OF MERCIES AND THE GOD OF ALL COMFORT WHO COMFORT/ETH US IN ALL OUR TRIBU/LATION THAT WE MAY BE ABLE TO COMFORT THEM/ WHICH ARE IN ANY TROUBLE BY THE COMFORT WHERE/WITH WE OURSELVES ARE COMFORTED OF GOD. 2 COR 1.3// [Indistinct]// IT IS THE LORD LET HIM/ DO THAT WHICH SEEMETH HIM/ GOOD II SAM 1O.12/ THE LORD GAVE AND THE/ LORD HATH TAKEN AWAY/ BLESSED BE THE NAME OF/ THE LORD JOB 1.21/ A10T(162)/ Sculptor: Pietro Bazzanti, Signature: P.BAZZANTI.F

Sarah McCalmont

Next, I was able to bring a Swiss scholar, writing a biography of the surviving son, together with the two cousins in England who are his descandants. Often so we find we can join lost branches of families, including those in France with those in Australia of a half-Italian, half English family, or of a Swiss family with members in Sweden and those in Florence.

In this way, too, we involve numerous persons, descendants and scholars, and associations: the Browning Society, Trollope Society, Walter Savage Landor Society, Historic Gardens Foundation, Waterloo Society, Friends of Leighton House Museum, Somerville College, Oriel College, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Firenze, ASCE (Association of Significant Cemeteries in Europe), Association for Gravestone Studies, etc., globally in the challenge of finding funds for the very beautiful but ruined cemetery's much-needed restoration.

On taxonomies may I recommend this Google video:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2159021324062223592&q=type%3Agoogle+engEDU

This is the talk I gave yesterday in Italian for ICCD (Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione), the Comune di Roma, and ASCE (Association for Significant Cemeteries in Europe), in the Auditorium Ara Pacis.

We are now at 1357 signatures on the web at http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/471134975,
'That the Swiss-owned, so-called 'English' Cemetery in Florence be kept open, be restored and be declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site', and with 3360 signatures in-house from our visitors, for a total of 4717 signatures. We have decided to keep them coming.

If you wish to donate to the Aureo Anello Association for the restoration of the 'English' Cemetery you can do so by a cheque made out to 'Aureo Anello' and posted to 'English' Cemetery, Piazzale Donatello 38, 50132 Florence, Italy; or through the Pay Pal 'Donate' button below, which can also be used for the CDs, for the hand-bound limited edition books or for the sculptures of Elizabeth and Robert's 'Clasped Hands' or tondos with their portraits (Amalia Ciardi Duprè's sculpture can also be found at http://www.florin.ms/amaliadupre.html), or some or all of these.

Sincerely,
Julia Bolton Holloway
Aureo Anello Association for the Library and Cemetery
Piazzale Donatello, 38
50132 FIRENZE, ITALY

HOPE/SPERANZA

2007-05-04T18:34:00.000+02:00

Today, 4 May 2007, has been a perfect day for gardening, wet, damp, moist, beautiful. the blackbirds have been singing their hearts out with with their beautiful clear song. And our gardeners came at 7:00 a.m. to trim our laurel hedges back to prevent their roots from damaging tombs.

Today, 4 May 2007, Dr Vieri Torrigiani Malaspina has had his gardeners plant a climbing rose on Mrs Stisted's tomb, the one shaped like a four poster bed in wrought iron (I am longing to see what it does),

a white rose on the tomb of Anna Susanna Lloyd Horner (which originally had such a white rose from the Giardino Torrigiani),

and pomegranates by the tombs of Elizabeth Barrett Browning,

Walter Savage Landor

and Arthur Hugh Clough.

The tombs of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Arthur Hugh Clough have already been restored. Tomorrow, Alberto Casciani of Meridiana Restauri comes to restore that of Walter Savage Landor and that of Mary Somerville's husband William Somerville, as well as to make moulds of Lord Leightons roundels of harps, Hebrew, Greek, Christian, the Hebrew harp with a broken slave shackle, on Elizabeth Barrett Browning's tomb for the Leighton House Museum http://www.rbkc.gov.uk/LeightonHouseMuseum/general/ in London. We chose the Somerville tomb to honour Mary Somerville, who discovered two planets and who taught Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron's daughter, mathematics, Ada, then, with Charles Babbage, inventing the computer.

Torrigiani's gardeners have also planted gardenias and hydrangeas in the terra cotta pots we have bought to go along the paths as in the ancient Brogi photograph of the Cemetery. We have proclaimed war on our fragrant laurel as the roots were damaging the tombs, the leaves their marble. These will be replaced with pomegranates, with myrtle, and with box.

Today, 4 May 2007, I discovered that the still fecund red rose by Elizabeth's tomb was planted by 'Professor Knight of Edinburgh'. I looked him up on the web. He came here in 1905, when he had retired from teaching moral philosophy, and his profound interest in women's education. A History of the English Church in Florence tells us:

"Many are the pilgrimages made to her grave, as the custode of the cemetery can tell, and only a few months ago Professor Knight of Edinburgh caused a rose tree to be planted there, and an enamelled plaque to be suspended to the iron railing which surrounds the grave, inscribed with these words: IN MEMORY OF/ ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING/ PLANTED BY PROFESSOR KNIGHT/ MARCH 1905/ ROSES SHALL BLOOM, NOR WANT BEHOLDERS,/ SPRUNG FROM THE DUST WHERE OUR OWN FLESH MOULDERS".

We have also planted eighteen lavender bushes along the brow of the hill, to form a hedge against its precipice. These given to us by the wife of a Scotsman whose ashes were buried there to the keening of his son in kilt and sporan on bagpipes. While delicate wildflowers, especially scarlet poppies, are everywhere, including by the tomb for an adolescent whose father had placed on it a sculpture of the Grim Reaper scything through poppies and lilies.

Here seen between the tombs of Fanny and Theodosia Trollope

Here the detail of the scythe swathing through poppies and lilies.

In August we will graft roses and myrtles and separate the wild irises, as well as the oleander, having one myrtle and one oleander left of the original nineteenth-century stock before everything was rooted out or put to weed-killer. Cherry trees, like laurel bushes we must banish, as their roots destroy tombs. But we should so love the small dogwood bushes, such as grow in Quincy, Illinois, with their delicate blooms. Also bulbs of different kinds of lilies, to go by the tombs on which they are sculpted. And more roses.

Dottor Vieri Torrigiani's website is at
http://www.giardinotorrigiani.it/. With Italian websites remember to click on the central image to enter. You will find a lovely account, but all in Italian, of their ancestral garden and its tower as a lung for the city of Florence, and of sending his gardeners out and about the city on bicycles!

This evening our blackbirds are still singing! Sometimes, too, we hear an owl, and also cuckoos. As well as the church bells of a convent near-by. All allowing us to forget that we live on an island in the midst of Florence's arterial traffic. Now we, too, can become a lung for the city of Florence providing her not with carbon dioxide and other noxious fumes but with oxygen, and sweet-smelling lavender and roses.

We are now at 1353 signatures on the web at http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/471134975,
'That the Swiss-owned, so-called 'English' Cemetery in Florence be kept open, be restored and be declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site', and with 3312 signatures in-house from our visitors, for a total of 4665 signatures. We have decided to keep them coming.

If you wish to donate to the Aureo Anello Association for the restoration of the 'English' Cemetery you can do so by a cheque made out to 'Aureo Anello' and posted to 'English' Cemetery, Piazzale Donatello 38, 50132 Florence, Italy; or through the Pay Pal 'Donate' button below, which can also be used for the CDs, for the hand-bound limited edition books or for the sculptures of Elizabeth and Robert's 'Clasped Hands' or tondos with their portraits (Amalia Ciardi Duprè's sculpture can also be found at http://www.florin.ms/amaliadupre.html), or some or all of these.

Sincerely,
Julia Bolton Holloway
Aureo Anello Association for the Library and Cemetery
Piazzale Donatello, 38
50132 FIRENZE, ITALY

NOW IS THE WINTER OF OUR DISCONTENT, MADE GLORIOUS SPRING . . .

2007-03-18T14:56:00.000+01:00

Once our Cemetery was like this:

Then it was put to weed killer and most of the nineteenth-century plants ripped out. I have pleaded, in English and in Italian, that we restore it to the garden it had been. We no longer apply weed-killer. Instead I and friends weed out its stinging nettles, wearing rubber gloves to do so. And we have planted bulbs. Given to us in memory of an aunt whose ashes were sent to New Zealand, so that she also be remembered in Florence, the city of flowers.

The hyacinths and narcissi perfume the entire graveyard.

A Canadian grave. Her family used to send money each year for the upkeep of its little garden.

John Roddam Spencer Stanhope sculpted this for his daughter, with daffodils on the marble cross. These real daffodils are in full bloom beside it as they had been in the nineteenth century.

Beside it is the ark sculpted as if floated on waves by the other Pre-Raphaelite, William Holman Hunt, for his wife Fanny who died following childbirth. These two tombs are next to Lord Leighton's for Elizabeth Barrett Browning. All three of great beauty.

Franco Zeffirelli used this tomb for that of Elizabeth Barrett Browning in Tea with Mussolini. The red and white tape is to indicate that the Cemetery is in danger, likewise its visitors, until we can get it stabilized and restored.

Flowers by the tombs of Southwood Smith and a Swiss self-taught artist.

The young children of Pastor Dalgas are buried here. So we have planted two hyacinths for them.

This is Russian Row, with many of its tombstones in Cyrillic.

The gold and scarlet are tulips.

This is the tomb of the Rev. Charles Crossman.

One young person used to sing the Beatles' song 'Strawberry Fields For Ever'. It is written on his gravestone. So we have planted strawberries on it, knowing that once there were wild strawberries growing on them. These came yesterday, from Vallombrosa.

This month many more plants will be brought here, this time from the Giardino Torrigiani which supplied the original plants in the nineteenth century and so they will be from the same stock.

We are now at 1341 signatures on the web at http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/471134975,
'That the Swiss-owned, so-called 'English' Cemetery in Florence be kept open, be restored and be declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site', and with 3130 signatures in-house from our visitors, for a total of 4471 signatures. We have decided to keep them coming.

If you wish to donate to the Aureo Anello Association for the restoration of the 'English' Cemetery you can do so by a cheque made out to 'Aureo Anello' and posted to 'English' Cemetery, Piazzale Donatello 38, 50132 Florence, Italy; or through the Pay Pal 'Donate' button below, which can also be used for the CDs, hand-bound limited edition books and sculptures of Elizabeth and Robert's 'Clasped Hands':

Sincerely,
Julia Bolton Holloway
Aureo Anello Association for the Library and Cemetery
Piazzale Donatello, 38
50132 FIRENZE, ITALY

INFORMATION HIGHWAY TO FLORENCE'S 'ENGLISH' CEMETERY

2006-12-21T05:16:00.000+01:00

Do you remember we used to call the Web, the World Wide Web, the 'Information Highway'? These are the signposts to the web essays on Florence's English Cemetery. Click on the URLs beneath the pictures to learn more:

Tomb of Elizabeth Barrett Browning
http://www.florin.ms/ebbflor1.html
http://www.florin.ms/ebbdeath.html

Biblioteca e Bottega Fioretta Mazzei
http://www.umilta.net/biblioteca.html

Arnolfo di Cambio's stemma for Florence from the Porta a'Pinti
http://www.florin.ms/prontintervento.html

Amalia Ciardi DuPrè, Beatrice and Dante

http://www.florin.ms/ceramic.html

http://www.florin.ms/landscape.html

http://www.florin.ms/cimitero.html

LA CITTA` E IL LIBRO III
ELOQUENZA SILENZIOSA:
VOCI DEL RICORDO INCISE NEL
CIMITERO 'DEGLI INGLESI',
CONVEGNO INTERNAZIONALE
3-5 GIUGNO 2004

THE CITY AND THE BOOK III
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
'MARBLE SILENCE, WORDS ON STONE:
FLORENCE'S' ENGLISH CEMETERY',
GABINETTO VIEUSSEUX AND
'ENGLISH CEMETERY', FLORENCE
3-4 JUNE 2004
http://www.florin.ms/gimel.html

Odoardo Fantacchiotti
http://www.florin.ms/sculptors.html

Motivi egizi nel Cimitero 'degli Inglesi'/ Egyptian Motives in the English Cemetery
http://www.florin.ms/egyptian.html

We are now at 1317 signatures on the web at http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/471134975,
'That the Swiss-owned, so-called 'English' Cemetery in Florence be kept open, be restored and be declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site', and with 1970 signatures in-house from our visitors, for a total of 3287 signatures. We have decided to keep them coming.

If you wish to donate to the Aureo Anello Association for the restoration of the 'English' Cemetery you can do so by a cheque made out to 'Aureo Anello' and posted to 'English' Cemetery, Piazzale Donatello 38, 50132 Florence, Italy; or through the Pay Pal 'Donate' button below, which can also be used for the CDs, hand-bound limited edition books and sculptures of Elizabeth and Robert's 'Clasped Hands':

Sincerely,
Julia Bolton Holloway
Aureo Anello Association for the Library and Cemetery
Piazzale Donatello, 38
50132 FIRENZE, ITALY

TITLE PAGES/ TOMB INSCRIPTIONS

2006-11-02T14:10:00.000+01:00

The other day a fine book arrived from England, a study by Christopher Webb Smith of South Africa. Christopher Webb Smith was in the Bengal Civil Service, lived next in South Africa, and then came to Florence for an active retirement, carefully painting all the great works of art in the Pitti, a work which is now lost. But his South Africa volume survives, is published and is lovely.

This copy came smelling rather of English dampness so we took it out to his tomb as we usually do with our books reuniting them to their authors buried here, reading together title page and tomb inscription. And we decided to leave it sunning on his tomb for the next few hours. And all our visitors came saying - and marvelling - 'There's a book on a tomb!' So we explained to them our tradition.

Then I found on the web that Gozzini's, an antiquarian book shop just down via Ricasoli from San Marco, was selling a copy of Mary Somerville's work. So off I went on my bicycle to get it. The Italian translation published in 1861 had already been sold. So instead they gave me for the same price the English original. Now Mary Somerville, unable to attend university or gain a degree, taught herself algebra, discovered a planet, was a member of the Royal Society, taught Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron's daughter, mathematics, Ada in turn with Charles Babbage inventing the computer, as Ada suggested to him the use of Jacquard loom cards, IBM punch cards. Mary buried her husband William Somerville here, being buried herself in Naples with a magnificent tomb raised by her daughters, showing her full size. This is a children's version of her life on the web. We took Mary Somerville's book to her husband's grave, reading both title page and tomb inscription. Perhaps someday we can visit her tomb in Naples, with its fine realistic sculpture by the Calabrian Francesco Jerace of Mary as she had been in her nineties, still writing books used as texts by students at Cambridge University.

Browsing on the web looking for the image of Mary Somerville's tomb in Naples by the twenty-year-old sculptor, Francesco Jerace from Calabria whom Martha Somerville commissioned to do the work, I suddenly did a double take. For another sculpture by Jerace of his parents showed his mother as just like Anne Susanna Horner, buried here in a tomb with a portrait medallion, the same hand, the same veil, almost the same face. The Horner family is fascinating, Leonard Horner translating Pasquale Villari's book on Savonarola, his two daughters, Susan and Joanna writing a fine guidebook to Florence which we give on the florin website, and Susan also keeping a diary, now in the Harold Acton Library of Florence's British Institute. Excitedly I told my friend, Alyson Price, of the find. Then apologised. It wasn't possible. Jerace was only ten years old when Mrs Horner died. No problem, Alyson e-mailed back, for by the time the tomb was commissioned, likely by the Horner's friend, Martha Somerville, he had turned twenty!

And this is his sculpture representing his Calabria:

As we can see, Mrs Horner's tomb with its sculpture by Jerace is in great need of restoration. The pietra serena base has fallen apart and the marble it supports is at risk. We have now restored Elizabeth Barrett Browning's tomb, thanks in part to Tony Moulton Barrett, finding in our files that Moulton Barretts in the past have also seen to its cleaning. We have restored Arthur Hugh Clough's tomb, thanks to the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, because of its design taken from the Marchese Torrigiani's copy of Champollion and Rosellini's book of their Expedition to Egypt and Nubia, the year following this Cemetery's founding, both aided by the Grand Duke of Tuscany. We have repaired Isaac Lumley's tomb, thanks to the kindness of Joanna Lumley. Jean Pierre Vieusseux's tomb has been restored by the Opificio delle Pietre Dure, and likewise Holman Hunt's tomb, sculpted by himself, for his wife Fanny. While Iris Fromm, a woman master stonemason, came from Bavaria and in two weeks repaired 28 of the most scandalously broken tombs. Now we await the restoring of Fanny and Theodosia Trollope's matching tombs with Thomas Adolphus Trollope's Latin inscriptions to his mother, his wife, and the tomb of cantankerous, marvellous Walter Savage Landor, as well as the tombs of the Checcucci family whose vandalized tombs and inscriptions we restore with the help of their family members, as far away as Australia.

In 2007 shall be the 180th anniversary of the 'English' Cemetery and I am plotting a ceremony where we bring their books to their tombs, EBB's, Isa Blagden's, Theodore Parker's and many more. Meanwhile someone has given 150 euro worth of daffodil bulbs, as a memorial to her aunt whose ashes have now gone from Florence to New Zealand. We shall be planting these this Sunday. Because I know of such daffodils planted 100 years ago in an English churchyard by the graves of two Anglican Sisters, which still propagate themselves as a marvellous carpet of gold each Spring. Our irises will need dividing and replanting in August as they too are propagating their kind. These the true purple Florentine lily that grow wild in these parts. Particularly I want a pomegranate by Elizabeth's tomb as both she and Robert wrote of them.

Talking of which our 'Egyptian Motives in the English Cemetery' event and ongoing (through May) exhibition in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale certainly taught us that tombs must have portraits and names for the 'Ba', the 'psyche', the Soul, to return. EBB's name in her family and by Robert was 'Ba'. We have now given her name by her tomb not merely the E.B.B. placed there. And Amalia Ciardi Duprè is sculpting two tondos, one of Elizabeth, the other of Robert, from the Gordigiani portraits, to go on the Gatehouse wall facing the tombs, so she shall also have her portrait here. Would some kind benefactor be willing to gift these to the 'English' Cemetery?

We are now at 1269 signatures on the web at http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/471134975,
'That the Swiss-owned, so-called 'English' Cemetery in Florence be kept open, be restored and be declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site', and with 1800 signatures in-house from our visitors, for a total of 3069 signatures. We have decided to keep them coming.

If you wish to donate to the Aureo Anello Association for the restoration of the 'English' Cemetery you can do so by a cheque made out to 'Aureo Anello' and posted to 'English' Cemetery, Piazzale Donatello 38, 50132 Florence, Italy; or through the Pay Pal 'Donate' button below, which can also be used for the CDs, hand-bound limited edition books and sculptures of Elizabeth and Robert's 'Clasped Hands':

Sincerely,
Julia Bolton Holloway
Aureo Anello Association for the Library and Cemetery
Piazzale Donatello, 38
50132 FIRENZE, ITALY