The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-01-02
AN ITALIAN CAMPO sANTo.
The Burial Place of Genoa and its Mar
 ble Statuary.

ble Statuary.
 The Campo Santo is the burial place of the city, the cemetery for it's dead; and was as interesting as it was, to an American, curious. We drove up to a. long, low, square edifice, apparently covering a large extent of ground; left our carriage and passed into court yard and thence under an arched gate way, and found ourselves in a series of cloisters inclosing square, or, to speak more accurately, parallelogram, which might contain, at a guess, an acre and half or two acres of ground. This parallelogram was divided into two yards of, I should guess, equal size by cloister running across from one side to the other. The Campo San to being built at the foot and on the side of hill, the cloisters along one side of the parallelogram were on terrace or embankment, bringing the floor of the cloister and an accompany ing chapel at about the level of the roof of the other cloisters. The yards were filled with the graves of the conn., mon people; the cloisters with the tombs of the noble and the wealthy. Dives had tomb, Lazarus a grave stone. These tombs in the cloisters were made the occasion for elaborate groups of statuary. To this extent the Campo Santa of Genoa might be com pared with the portion of Westminster Abbey set apart for the burial of the noble dead, but with this very impor- tant difference; public authority de- cides who may be buried in Westmins- ter Abbey; I judge that any one who can purchase a site and put up nlon- ument of a given size and quality may have a burial in Campo Santo of Genoa. All show places for the dead are ex- ceedingly distasteful to me: of all show places for the dead that I have ever seen, the Campo Santo of Genoa is the most distasteful. The statuary was in- | teresting, and much of it marvellous in 1 its technic; the lace-work on the robe of the mourning wife or mother who was a favorite figure in the groups was 1 extraordinarily delicate,s one might al- most take it for real lace. Some of the conceptions embodied were poetic, as | lOf GAdl1plSJ OIlC III "AIiSlA oCehbii "te' represented as itself slain, while the triumphant victor over death rose from the tomb above deaths prostrate fig ure. In one group the ingenious sculp- 1 tor had, with great skill, employed a device as remarkable in it's effect as 1t was simple in it's design. An angel ap- peared to be up-soaring on extended wing: 1t stood out from the stone and above the earth, which it's feet were not 1 touching. Extraordinary lightness had been given to the figure by the sculptor, and 1t was not until gave 1t a second look that I discovered that the figure was really supported in its place by it's gassamer robe of white marble which swept the ground And yet, despite all the ingenuity, I found myself wonder ing, admiring, curious, but untouched. There were two or three simple, unpre- tentious single figures which had feel inr in them; but on most of the groups I found myself looking, not with any emotion of pity or sorrow or hope, but only with curious wonder how the chisel could produce such effects. They were as cold as the marble of which they were made. The mysterious fire of life was not in them. A friend more familiar with modern art than I am tells me that there is no modern Italian art; and after seeing Campo Santo can well believe her. In the figure o1 one old man who brought 8 tiny candle to light and place before one of these tornbs there was more pathos than 1T all the studied attempt of the sculptor's art to interest the sorrows of life
 Even the mechanical ingenuity of thf
 sculptors and the often exquisite deli cacy of their work was in many eases
 robbed of it's legitimate effect by tho
 rusty iron wreaths, the unlightet lamps, the empty vases, and the with
 cred flowers which too often stood a
 the tomb; mathematical of respect fol
 convention and of absolute forgetful
 ness, not of that tender affection whicl
 they were supposed to emblemize. the!
 gave to this sculpture gallery some
 thing of the unkempt appearance whicl
 too often disgraces the American vii
 lage graveyard. The sense of the seri ousness of life, the solemnity of death
 the tragic disruptions and dislocation which death brings, and the inf1nit pity of 1t all which hushes us into si lence and makes us speak In whisper before the weather beaten grave-stone in simpler burial-places, were who'll , wanting in the exhibitory cloisters 0
 the Campo Santo. In vain were the ex l clamations of our guide who obligingl told us what to admire. They evoke } no response from any of our party Correspondence of the Outlook.