In the current organising of my photographs I came across this one showing the tomb of the writer Ouida (Louise de La Ramée) in Bagni di Lucca’s English or Protestant cemetery.

Ouida’s tomb was restored in 2013 under the aegis of the Montaigne Foundation with a major contribution from Prof. Tony Bareham in memory of his wife. Tony Bareham sadly died earlier this year.

These are photographs showing the decay inflicted upon some other graves before their refurbishment.

There are two distinct schools regarding the preservation and restoration of cemeteries. One prefers to leave the repositories of the dead to natural dilapidation and decay: the other believes that tombs should be restored as far as possible to their original condition.

I remain in two minds about this; surely decay is an essential part of death?

Bagni di Lucca’s Michel de Montaigne foundation, presided over by their indefatigable director Marcello Cherubini, believes that cemeteries and the memorials to their occupants should be restored whenever possible to a quasi-pristine condition with their surfaces cleaned of eroding mossy growth and their rusting railings repainted. Since the first decade of this millennium the foundation has carried out this project with regard to the historically valuable (but aren’t all cemeteries historically valuable?) English, or Protestant, cemetery in Bagni di Lucca. I’ve written extensively in my posts about this piece of land where, to quote Rupert Brooke’s poem ‘The soldier’, there’s “some corner of a foreign field that is for ever England.”

Here is a selection of them:

2013

https://longoio.wordpress.com/2013/09/15/chrysanthemums-for-the-end-of-an-era/

2014

https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2014/09/08/faded-crythanthemums/

https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2014/10/08/a-rosy-relationship/

2015

https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2015/03/10/urn-burial-in-bagni-di-lucca/

https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2015/10/17/john-gibson-and-the-protestant-cemetery/

2016

https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2016/08/30/a-cello-elegy/

https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2016/09/05/paths-of-glory/

2017

https://longoio3.com/2017/09/03/new-life-to-bagni-di-luccas-cemetery/

2019

https://longoio3.com/2019/09/04/a-commemoration-of-a-great-lady/

I love wandering about in cemeteries, not only in the discovery of the last resting places of those persons who have immeasurably enriched our lives but also because they contain valuable natural oases, especially in London. Truly in the midst of death there is life.

Here are some further posts on the theme of cemeteries.

2019

https://longoio3.com/2019/03/02/dalla-morte-alla-nuova-vita/

https://longoio3.com/2019/06/12/16413/

https://longoio3.com/2019/07/19/la-madrina-ritrovata/

2020

https://longoio3.com/2020/05/08/one-tree-hill/

I conclude with my meditation on a tomb in a well-known Parisian cemetery. I leave you to guess whose tomb it is.

 

CIMITIÈRE DE MONTMARTRE

*

I may only make love to you

for barely an hour;

on your slopes a cemetery holds

sweetheart’s decayed flower.

*

Wandering among the city

of the yet-living dead

by a rejected poet’s tomb

an exile’s tear is shed.

*

Cats bask among grass-covered urns –

keepers of vanished souls –

debris of inspiration while

basilican bell tolls.

*

Master of the funeral mass,

camellias from the south;

where are the lover’s ardent lips

that kissed your juice-filled mouth?

*

Bodiless you glare accusing

outside is life’s city;

you wrote about it supremely,

nothing left but pity.

*

In the warm unseasonal sun

clasped we bid them adieu –

the remains of those that were loved –

and our own lives renew.