Cimitero monumentale di Bonaria

The monumental cemetery of Bonaria climbs the hillside below Cagliari’s Basilica of Nostra Signora di Bonaria. Consecrated in 1828, it became a repository of funerary sculpture and a record of the city’s changing artistic and social history. Burial concessions ended in 1968, and the cemetery is now recognised as a monumental site.

Why it matters

Bonaria offers a concentrated view of Sardinian funerary art from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Families commissioned monuments in a range of styles, from neoclassical to Liberty and Symbolist, by sculptors including Giuseppe Sartorio, Giovanni Battista Trojani, Vincenzo Vela, Tito Sarrocchi, Francesco Ciusa and Franco D’Aspro. In 2011 the Ministry of Cultural Heritage declared it a monumental cemetery.

What to notice

Sculpture and inscriptions make individual memorials a record of family histories and public life. Among the works associated with Giuseppe Sartorio are several tombs commemorating children, whose figures and inscriptions give the cemetery a distinctive group of funerary monuments. The cemetery also includes the Viale degli Eroi, where military memorials form a separate part of the site.

Context and history

The cemetery was laid out by Captain Luigi Damiano of the military engineers and consecrated on 28 December 1828; the first burial followed on 1 January 1829. As the city expanded, terraces were added, including work associated with architect Gaetano Cima. The municipality stopped granting new burial concessions in 1968. The hillside also contains evidence of earlier Punic-Roman and early Christian burials.