On Those Missing – 25 Tower Photo Salute

25 Photos Looking West Over Bergamo from a Tower from 2022 - 2025

There's nothing like a funeral, wake or entombment ceremony to mark time and leave one a bit wistful. After 10 years or so now in Italy, we’ve been to at least one of these events every year. We’ve spent more time at the Cimitero Monumentale di Bergamo (and the hospital for that matter) than we’ve ever would have guessed when we arrived here. Both are places that are surprisingly human and decidedly not scary.

Recently, we went to two wakes with the space of two weeks (same family) at the Casa del Commiato Bergamo - Centro Funerario Bergamasco, which you could translate as “House of Goodbye”, where commiato is farewell or goodbye. A wake is technically, called a veglia funebre, but it’s not something we hear often. 

Bergamo’s Cimitero Monumental is beautifully landscaped and has many interesting tombs to look at, not that we would specifically pick it out for a stroll but one can’t help but notice when there, paying respects. The other day, we went to attend an entombment (one of deceased from the commiato), the putting of the ashes in the columbarium of a family vault, and had a chance to do a few laps around the cemetery. We were looking for said family and couldn’t find them. They had turned off their phones. After a while, we gave up and returned to the front office to ask. Next thing you know, we are riding around with the director of the cemetery in a Panda. He didn’t trust we would find the spot based on his directions (Yes, we played the helpless American tourist card a bit.) We didn't find the family however as they had moved on to another relative’s tomb (the other deceased from the commiato). Tomb chasing is what we did that day.

The hospital (on other end of the city) is like a small self-contained city with restaurants, shops, and interesting artwork. It’s not the worse destination you could to visit. To give some structure to our visits we typically seek out some of the more interesting pieces of artwork displayed corridors and have a running catalog of favorites.

The people who have disappeared during our time in Italy that we would like to honor, in no particular order: Flamina, Blandina, Gino, Maria, Nunzia, Hotlips, Andrea, Luigi, Domenico, and Mario come to mind. Here’s a caro saluto from our torretta, where we see the sun track across the sky daily. The composite image is 25 images looking west over Bergamo's lower city and part of the upper city.


 

Left: A close-up of a work by Renzo Colombo, part of the Lascito Fumagalli in the ASST Azienda Ospedaliera Papa Giovanni XXIII.

Right: A close-up of the work "Robot" by Ivano Parolini, part of the TheTubeOne Exhibit  in the ASST Azienda Ospedaliera Papa Giovanni XXIII.

 

Left: Cimitero Monumentale di Bergamo - entrance. Right: Inside with a statue.

Italian Mutual Benevolent Society Tomb - New Orleans

In the spirit of our Italian-related travels - we end up again in a cemetery once again, but this time in New Orleans. One of the stops after Marie Laveau’s tomb in the Saint Louis Cemetery #1 was the Italian Mutual Benevolent Society Tomb. The plaque on the tomb reads:

“This architectural masterpiece is the most notable of the many multi-vaulted society tombs in the cemetery. Designed by Pietro Gualdi it was fabricated in Italy and erected in 1857 at a cost of $40,000. Ownership was ceded to the cemetery in 1986 by Loggia Dante #174, F. & M, which had acquired ownership from the Italian Society in 1949.”

A society tomb is an option where you could be buried in a tomb (not in just a wall or at all) if you or your family couldn’t afford your own tomb or if you felt a close association with the particular society. The way it worked is that you joined the society and paid dues of some kind or recurring fees so that by the time you died, you could be buried in the tomb. Society tombs are typically themed as this one is - Italian poor immigrants. Your remains in a society tomb might only remain in the initial placement in the tomb for a year and a day. As newly dead arrived and space was needed, your remains would be pushed to the back of the tomb and down into a great collective bone pile. The Italian Mutual Benevolent Society tomb is said to have space for more than 1,000 remains and is the tallest monument in the Saint Louis Cemetery #1. The statue on top is known as ‘Charity’.

Contrary to the commonly held idea that above-ground burial in New Orleans is only due to the high water table, the real reason is likely a combination of a high water table and other factors such as Spanish burial tradition and the ability of above ground tombs to accommodate a large number of dead without taking up valuable arable land.

In a different post, we talked about the feel of New Orleans and, in particular, the French Quarter. It is interesting to reflect now - after the visit - that New Orleans and surrounding parishes are not part of the protestant Bible belt that dominates religion in the south. New Orleans has a high percentage of Catholics and it is perhaps this influence that we felt familiar with and was unexpected.

Speaking of things Italian, we never made it into the Central Grocery to get a muffaletta sandwich. Che peccato! (In fact we missed the Piazza d’Italia - we may have walked by it but didn’t stop - and the American Italian Renaissance Museum & Library.) The Italian-American Central Grocery was founded in 1906 by a Sicilian immigrant, Salvatore Lupo. The muffaletta sandwich which appears on most of the menus we looked at in New Orleans was invented by Lupo. It is a sandwich made with the Sicilian muffaletta sesame bread. The vero-muffaletta always has marinated olive salad - ingredients typical of a jar of giardiniera. According to New Orleans Online, the majority of Italian immigrants to New Orleans are from Sicily and started to arrive in large numbers in the 1880s.

From Grocery to Grave? Central Grocery (left) and Charity on Top of the Mutual Benevolent Society Tomb (right)

Italian Mutual Benevolent Society Tomb – Saint Louis Cemetery #1, New Orleans

The Tomb of Marie Laveau

The tomb of Marie Laveau - the famous voodoo priestess of New Orleans - is in the Saint Louis Cemetery #1 - a short walk from the French Quarter. According to the plaque outside Saint Louis Cemetery #1 the cemetery is “[t]he oldest extant cemetery in New Orleans. Established by royal Spanish land grant August 14, 1789.” The plaque on the Marie Laveau tomb reads:

This Greek revival tomb is reputed burial place of this notorious “voodoo queen”. A mystic cult, Voodoism, of African origin, was brought to this city from Santo Domingo and flourished in the 19^th century. Marie Laveau was the most widely known of many practitioners of the cult.

Laveau’s tomb is a pediment-style tomb. For more on the types of tombs you will find in New Orleans cemeteries, go to New Orleans Cemeteries.

According to our guide (on the very interesting and highly recommended walking tour: Mondo Creole), this tomb is the second most visited tomb in the US, after the Elvis tomb. Pop culture rules. Also according to our guide, the X marks are part of a tradition to get a wish granted: get a brick from another tomb, spin around, and mark three X’s on the Laveau tomb - or something to that effect. Not something we would do, but the graffiti on the tomb caught our eye as interesting to look at – although much to the dismay of the owners of the tomb - and then this note written on the wall:

To a sister who walked this Earth. Be one, be peaceful, rest as you will and enter the cycle as it pleases you. Thank you for being. I offer my hands to share in your work as I do my own work.

In the back of our minds, on repeat was the Grant Lee Buffalo song Dixie Drug Store from the great 1993 album Fuzzy. In the song, the singer spends a night with Laveau or does he? Here are the lyrics towards the end of the song:

I shouted out for Marie
I darted out the door
An old man on the wooden porch said
What you in there for

Son you got no business
The hoodoo store's been closed
Long as I remember
A century I suppose

But Mister I just spent the night
With a young gal named Laveau
He said the Widow Paris
Done had a little laugh on you

I said you mean to tell me
That was the voodooin'
He nodded yes none other
The Queen of New Orleans

Ooh Jambalaya
Ooh Jambalaya

“Widow Paris” refers to the fact that Marie Laveau married a man named Jacques Paris. He died under unexplained circumstances - ooh jambalaya.

Marie Laveau Tomb Plaque (Left) and Saint Louis Cemetery #1 Plaque (Right)

Words of Widsom and Beads on the Marie Laveau Tomb

Nearby Tombs – Missing Bricks Used to Etch an X on Marie Laveau’s Tomb?

Voodoo Practitioners or Tourists at Marie Laveau Tomb?

X Marks the Spot on Marie Laveau’s Tomb