Books: A New Look at the Poets' Last Resting Place

 ROME -- With two important anniversaries coming up - the Bicentenary of the death of John Keats' in 2021, followed by that of Shelley the year immediately after, heritage and conservation expert Nicholas Stanley-Price, a leading Member of the Advisory Committee of the Non-Catholic Cemetery for Foreigners in Rome, has published a new in-depth study of the burial places of the two best-known English poets.

 “The Graves of John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley” brings fresh insight not only into Rome's two most popular pilgrimage destinations for poetry lovers, but reveals many surprising new facts about the story of the Cemetery itself.

 Stanley-Price explains that Keats' grave, which lies in what is now the farthest corner of the Old Cemetery was actually the first headstone that greeted 19th century visitors at the original entrance through a narrow gate off the Via Marmorata. The cemetery bordered on open fields and the burial ground was cut off by a moat and a low wall that did not obstruct the view of the poet's last resting place, as immortalized in works by artists like Ettore Roesler Franz and the c.1886 photograph by Robert Macpherson.

 The Old Cemetery was abandoned in favour of the adjoining “New Cemetery” not long after Keats' burial in 1821 and risked very nearly disappearing altogether. One of the book's most dramatic episodes describes the plan put forward by the Rome city council of 1882 to run a road right through the old burial ground to connect the Testaccio and Ostiense districts. The plan was not carried out, thanks to the intervention of Queen Victoria  and Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany (her grandson). However, it continued to be mooted from time to time right up until World War II.

 Stanley-Price recounts how, only a year after Keats' death, Shelley's ashes were interred in the  “New Cemetery”, the third burial to take place in the recently allocated area. Sadly, permission was not granted by the Rome Church authorities to lay his remains in the Old Cemetery beside his small son William, who had died in Rome in 1819 and was buried in front of the Pyramid. Shelley's grave, huddled under the ancient Aurelian walls and marked by a simple marble slab inscribed with “Cor Cordiam” and a quotation from Shakespeare's “The Tempest”, was often criticized by 19th century visitors as being too modest and difficult to locate. The ambitious and daring plan of Shelley's daughter-in-law to embellish it with a marble sculpture of the poet, stretched out. drowned and stark naked, was considered too scandalous for Rome.

 Other fascinating and little known anecdotes include an unfortunate restoration job on the Keats headstone when the diligent restorer, unaware of the symbolic meaning of the lyre's missing cords, carved new ones to fill the gap (which had to be subsequently removed), as well as a protest demonstration by Italian Shelley fans during the first centenary celebrations when a newly installed bronze wreathe was thrown over the wall.

 Lavishly illustrated with reproductions of historic paintings and photographs, Stanley-Price's latest book is an ideal introduction to the coming Bicentenary celebrations and an invaluable souvenir for all visitors to the shrine of the two most loved poets in the English language.

 All Proceeds from sales benefit the Non-Catholic Cemetery in Rome.

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The Graves of John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley

by Nicholas Stanley-Price

The Non-Catholic Cemetery in Rome

10 euros