The Old Cemetery for Foreigners in Rome with a new Inventory of its burials

Abstract

From at least 1716 until formal closure of the Cemetery in 1822, non-Catholic foreigners dying in Rome were usually buried adjacent to the Pyramid of Gaius Cestius in Testaccio. Some 80 stone monuments in the Old Cemetery were systematically recorded in the 1980s. To these can now be added a similar number of burials known from travel accounts and archival sources. This new, combined Inventory of 157 entries provides notes on the life and death in Rome for each individual. Its information modifies current perceptions that the Old Cemetery burials reflect mainly an élite, male population of Grand Tourists and aristocrats. Women are better represented, as are a wide range of professions, crafts, and domestic roles. A reassessment of the Cemetery’s layout leads to conclusions about its original extent, the first appearance of stone memorials in the 1760s, and the deliberate planning of graves in a burial-ground usually considered as lacking any organizing principle.