Dark sights in Italy
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Cimitero Monumentale
Behind striking Renaissance- revival black-and-white walls, Milan’s wealthy have kept their dynastic ambitions alive long after death with grand sculptural gestures since 1866. Nineteenth-century death-the-maiden eroticism gives way to some fabulous abstract forms from midcentury masters. Studio BBPR’s geometric steel-and-marble memorial to Milan’s WWII concentration camp dead is stark and moving. Grab a map inside the forecourt - it’s easy to get lost.
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Cemetery
Soil shipped from Calvary during the Crusades - and reputed to reduce cadavers to skeletons within days - is said to lie within the white walls of this hauntingly beautiful cemetery, a beautiful final resting place for many prominent Pisans, arranged around a garden in a cloistered quadrangle. Many of the more interesting sarcophagi are of Greco-Roman origin, recycled in the Middle Ages.
During WWII, Allied artillery destroyed many of the cloisters' precious frescoes. Among the few to survive was the Triumph of Death - a remarkable illustration of Hell - attributed to an anonymous 14th-century painter known as 'The Master of the Triumph of Death'. Fortunately, the mirrors…
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Crocifisso del Tufo Etruscan Necropolis
Besides the Hypogea di Volumni outside of Perugia, the Crocifisso del Tufo Etruscan Necropolis is one of only two Etruscan necropolises that travellers can visit in Umbria. It dates back to the mid-6th century BC. Several series of burial chambers feature the etched names of their deceased residents. The manner in which the graves are laid out shows the preciseness of good ancient urban planning, albeit one whose residents couldn't quite appreciate it.
Many of the furnishings from the Necropolis can be found at the Louvre, British Museum and various other museums, though some of the collection hasn't left: the Museo Claudio Faina e Civico still holds onto a good chunk.
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Basilica di San Vitale, Mausoleo di Galla Placidia & Museo Nazionale
The basilica was consecrated in 547 by Archbishop Massimiano. In contrast to the sombre exterior, its interior is awash with colour as the rich greens, golds and blues of the mosaics are bathed in soft yellow sunlight. The mosaics on the side and end walls represent scenes from the Old Testament: to the left, Abraham prepares to sacrifice Isaac in the presence of three angels, while the one on the right portrays the death of Abel and the offering of Melchizedek. Inside the chancel, two magnificent mosaics depict the Byzantine emperor Justinian with San Massimiano and a particularly solemn and expressive Empress Theodora, who was his consort.
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Chiesa Santa Maria delle Anime del Purgatorio ad Arco
Guarded by three bronze skulls, this 17th-century church is macabre. Inside, two winged skulls adorn either side of the main altar. Built by a congregation dedicated to praying for souls in purgatory, the church became a centre for the Neapolitan cult of the dead which, although officially banned, is said to be far from extinct. Cult practices included lavishing care and gifts on a skull as a means of keeping in touch with an absent loved one.
Below the church in the hypogeum (currently closed) you can still see a dusty hoard of skulls and bones.
On a lighter note, the church boasts some fine paintings by Massimo Stanzione and Luca Giordano.
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Cimitero degli Inglesi
If you are a little sick of museums and need some air and a change of speed, you might consider heading east for the so-called English Cemetery. Located outside what were the city walls in 1828, and now effectively forming a large traffic island around which swarm thousands of hectic Florentine commuters, it is more accurately a Protestant cemetery and Swiss property.
Several notable foreigners rest in (relative) peace here, including Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Walter Savage Landor, part of the clique of Anglo writers that made Florence home.
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Risiera di San Sabba
The San Sabba rice-husking plant sounds like a harmless location, but in 1944 the Germans, with local Fascist help, built a crematorium here and turned it into Italy’s only extermination camp. It is believed 20,000 people perished here, including 5000 of Trieste’s 6000 Jews. Yugoslav partisans closed it when they liberated the city in 1945, and 20 years later it became a national monument and museum. Take bus 8 from the train station.
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La Salata
At 9km north of town, off the SP52 towards the Hotel Gabbiano Beach, is a palaeochristian graveyard dating from the 4th to the 6th centuries AD, La Salata. The cave burial chambers are found in marshland close to the sea, in an area dense with typical Mediterranean maquis. Inside the caves tier upon tier of narrow tombs are cut into the rock wall; others form shallow niches in the cave floor.
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Dante's Tomb
Italian literary legend Dante Alighieri spent the last 20 years of his life in Ravenna after being kicked out of Florence - to this day Florence supplies the oil for the lamps that burn in his tomb, as penance for exiling him. Dante's Divine Comedy was written in Ravenna, and today Dante's tomb is a reverent place with a wonderful mosaic floor.
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Cava d'Ispica
The town of Ispica, about 12km southeast of Modica, is located at the head of the 13km-long gorge known as Cava d'Ispica. Long used as a Neolithic burial site, the caves were later transformed into cave dwellings in the Middle Ages. The gorge is tranquil and verdant and you can follow an overgrown path along the whole length of the valley.
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Arche Scaligere
Walk through the archway at the far end of Piazza dei Signori to these ornate Gothic funerary monuments, the elaborate tombs of the Della Scala family, in front of the little Santa Maria Antica church. In the courtyard behind the Arche, have a look at the scavi (excavation work) that's been done on this part of medieval Verona.
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Carcere Borbonico
Heading back into daylight and further up the islet you will find the elegant, hexagonal Chiesa di San Pietro a Pantaniello and sombre Carcere Borbonico, one-time prison pad for leading figures of the Risorgimento (the 19th-century Italian unification movement), such as Poerio, Pironti, Nusco and Settembrini.
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Mausoleo di Teodorico
This two-storey mausoleum, built in 520, is a considerable feat of construction with its huge blocks of stone uncemented by any mortar, and 300-tonne dome. At the heart of the mausoleum is a Roman basin of porphyry that was recycled as a sarcophagus. Take bus 2 or 5 from the city centre.
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Chiesa Santa Maria della Sanità
Topped by a striking green-and-yellow tiled dome, the 17th-century Chiesa Santa Maria della Sanità boasts canvases by greats like Andrea Vaccaro, Luca Giordano and Giovan Vincenzo Forlì, as well as two contemporary sculptures by Riccardo Dalisi.
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Sant'Agata al Carcere
A small walk away from Piazza Stesicoro you will find the church of Sant'Agata al Carcere, built above the dungeons where the saint was imprisoned and tortured. You can ask the custodian for permission to take a peak at the gloomy prison cell below the church.
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Necropoli dei Grotticelli
The Necropoli dei Grotticelli is a honeycomb of Hellenistic and Byzantine tombs, one of which is wrongly ascribed to Archimedes. These catacombs, like the catacombs of Tyche, were once part of the underground aqueducts designed by the Greeks.
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Chianca Amara
The most gruesome of the handful of sights in Vieste is the Chianca Amara, where thousands were beheaded when Turks sacked Vieste in the 16th century.
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