Cimitero Monumentale

This guide to the Cimitero Monumentale in Verona starts across the Aleardi bridge, on marshland medieval clerks once called the rotten field. It follows an 1804 Napoleonic decree that forced Verona to bury its dead outside the walls, and the architect Giuseppe Barbieri, who began draining this soggy stretch in 1828 only to die with the work half finished. You'll hear how Francesco Ronzani carried it on, and why the cypress-lined avenues were planted for more than looks. Walk the entrance avenue slowly and notice how the drained lawns still argue with the marsh underneath.