Milan's Monumental Cemetery is a unique place. It is a vast open-air museum that shows in detail how Italian sculpture and architecture developed over the course of two centuries.
The cemetery covers an area of more than 250 thousand square meters, and 1866 is considered the date of its foundation. There are practically no graves of poor townspeople here, as only wealthy and renowned citizens of Milan were allowed to be buried here. However, there were no regulations regarding the nationality of the deceased. Therefore, you can find entire non-Catholic sections here, the most notable of which is the Jewish one.
As for the styles of the tombstones, architects and sculptors worked in a wide variety of directions, ranging from realism to abstractionism and Art Nouveau. No monument repeats another - such are the whims of wealthy people.
Be sure to find at least 2 famous monuments among the graves. The tomb of the Campari family, famous for inventing the popular drink of the same name, is adorned with a stone "The Last Supper" by Leonardo da Vinci. And the vault of Angelo Motta is made in the shape of a cake, as during his lifetime he became famous for introducing Christmas baked goods into mass production.
You can enter the Monumental Cemetery through the Farmedio chapel, where Milan's most honored citizens also found their final resting place.
