Camera Etrusca Photography Holidays & Workshops in Europe

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Flickr
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin
  • Vimeo
  • YouTube
  • RSS
  • Home
  • About
    • Testimonials
  • Location
    • Tuscany & Umbria Landscapes
    • Accommodation
    • Wining and Dining
  • Photo Tours and Workshops
    • Exclusive Photo Tours and Guided Tours
    • Master Class
    • Typical Tuscan Photo Tour
    • Rome Photo Tours
    • Venice Photo Tours
  • Dates and Prices
  • FAQ
    • What to Bring
  • Contact
  • Blog

Hidden Treasure to photograph: the campo santo, a gem found in an abandoned cemetery in Chianti

Posted on 4 July 2013 by patnicholas in LOST SITES 1 Comment
cemetery.chianti_PatrickNicholas-1220

 Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree’s shade
Where heaves the turf in many a mould’ring heap
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep

Gray’s Elegy in a Country Churchyard (written in Stoke Poges)

The drift from the land from the 1950s onward has left many Italian villages without any of their original families, resulting in abandoned ‘campo santi’, the village cemeteries. Chianti has become gentrified and just as Gray’s farming village of Stoke Poges has become the abode of bankers and stockbrokers, mean Chianti cottages are now owned by wealthy Florentines as holiday homes, or more commonly foreigners – the Italians do not call this area Chiantishire for nothing.

cemetery.chianti_PatrickNicholas-1263

The cypress avenue in Castellina in Chianti (SI)

 

I came across this cemetery near Castellina in Chianti and only spotted it because the oak wood around had been thinned for firewood. In fact it was the cypress avenue I spotted first. The cypress has symbolised mourning since its branches were used to garland statues of Pluto, god of the underworld.

cemetery.chianti_PatrickNicholas-1223

Cemetery gate with the funerary chapel at the end

A campo santo is melancholy at the best of times, but one that has no one left to visit it, to tend the graves, to leave flowers, not even on occasion of the day of ‘i morti’, All Hallows, when Italians traditionally return to the graveyard of their forefathers, especially so.

wreaths.cemetery.chianti_PatrickNicholas-1241

Tin wreaths inside the chapel

In the middle of the chapel floor is the disk that covers the charnel chamber where the bones from the campo santo outside would have been  brought in to release space.

cemetery.chianti_PatrickNicholas-1232

Charnel house

I lifted the lid to reveal chamber below. As Hamlet said while musing on Yorick’s skull in the graveyard “….to my lady’s chamber and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come”

cemetery.chianti_PatrickNicholas-1234

In a cathedral or important church it cost more to be buried within the church, dearer still in the chancel near the saint’s relics before the altar: thus the expression ‘the stinking rich’.

cemetery.chianti_PatrickNicholas-1235

In the cemetery I found the mournful memorial to Valeria Baroncelli, beside a posy of faded plastic flowers.

grave.cemetery.chianti_PatrickNicholas-1256

The stone says she died aged only 17 after a long and pitiful illness on 5th November 1940. I reflected that it would be quite selfish of me to dread my own death after a comparatively long, fruitful and interesting life when Valeria had been taken so young.

cemetery.chianti_PatrickNicholas-1257

Valeria Baroncelli’s ceramic ‘santino’ or momento mori portrait

She was from a family of obscure Chianti  rustics but I find her image hauntingly beautiful. As I wrote this last line I heard quite by chance Dowland’s ‘Lachrimae’ on the radio.

Contact me for a guided photo tour round Tuscany and its hidden treasure

 

Related posts:

Diana baths CastelgandolfoHidden Treasure to photograph: Diana’s Baths in Castelgandolfo, Rome ripatonna cicogninaHidden Treasure to photograph: the hermitage of Ripatonna, South Tuscany. Lake_Albano, CastelgandolfoHidden Treasure to photograph: The Roman Tunnel, Lake Albano near Rome Italy S.Lorenzo.vecchio_LakeBolsenaHidden treasure to photograph: Octagonal Church Ruin in Val di Lago, Bolsena

Powered by YARPP.

camposanto, cemetery, chianti, gray's elegy, Italian hidden treasure, not just photography, photo trip, photographic set

One comment on “Hidden Treasure to photograph: the campo santo, a gem found in an abandoned cemetery in Chianti”

  1. vanja says:
    9 June 2014 at 13:57

    this beautiful cemetery
    We have been going there in 2004 and 2007 in order to enjoy such
    were to happen to that was the way to the cemetery.
    pity that it is no longer maintained. emotionless

    questo bellissimo cimitero
    Noi andiamo lì nel 2004 e nel 2007, al fine di godere di tale
    dovesse accadere che era la strada per il cimitero.
    peccato che non è più mantenuto. emotionless

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Search

contact: Patrick Nicholas

  • +39 347 2752630
  • info@cameraetrusca.com
  • Contact Us
    • Facebook
    • Google+
    • Vimeo
    • YouTube
    • Pinterest
    • Linkedin

Categories

  • Endangered (1)
  • ETRUSCAN PLACES (20)
    • Civita Bagnoregio (1)
    • Lake Bolsena (2)
    • Pitigliano (2)
    • Pitigliano Little Jerusalem (1)
    • Sorano & Sovana (1)
    • The Sacred Ways (1)
    • Vulci (2)
  • Festivals in Tuscia (1)
  • GETTING ABOUT (3)
    • new Discovery for Camera Etrusca (1)
  • ITALIAN WAY OF LIFE (4)
    • Orvieto Olive Oil (1)
  • Landscape Photography (1)
  • LOST SITES (12)
  • PHOTO WORKSHOPS and PHOTO TOURS in BOHEMIA (1)
  • PHOTO WORKSHOPS and PHOTO TOURS in ITALY (18)
  • PHOTO WORKSHOPS and PHOTO TOURS in PORTUGAL (1)
  • PHOTOGRAPHY KIT, tips and accessories (7)
    • filters in the digital age (1)
    • instant smoke (1)
    • is film dead? (1)
    • what digital camera? (1)
  • Picturesque (1)
  • POST PRODUCTION (2)
    • making photo books (1)
    • Showing Off (1)
  • Rome (4)
  • Uncategorized (1)

Recent Post

  • Radicofani and the Grand Tour – Part 2 2 July 2020
  • Old Transparencies 16 November 2018
  • Fixing a stuck zoom and sensor cleaning 27 July 2018
  • Photo Workshops in Lisbon and the Coast. Start dates: May 25 and November 2. 12 March 2018
  • Winter Photo Workshop in Bohemia, Part 1 23 February 2018

Related Posts

  1. Hidden Treasure to photograph: Diana’s Baths in Castelgandolfo, Rome
  2. Hidden Treasure to photograph: the hermitage of Ripatonna, South Tuscany.
  3. Hidden Treasure to photograph: The Roman Tunnel, Lake Albano near Rome Italy
  4. Hidden treasure to photograph: Octagonal Church Ruin in Val di Lago, Bolsena

Photo Workshops, Photo Tours and Learning Holidays

  • cypress grove on via Cassia Tuscany
  • Flying Devil carries prostitute
  • Patrick Nicholas ruins Castro
  • Cahen_Tomb
  • Castelluccio_Norcia.wild_flowers.PatrickNicholas.-0960
  • Radicofani
  • Vatican.roof.saints.PatrickNicholas.-6965
  • corpus_domini_orvieto.PatrickNicholas
  • S.Lorenzo.vecchio_LakeBolsena

Camera Etrusca --- Corso Cavour, 176 05018 Orvieto - Umbria , IT
p.iva (VAT) 01815061203

Click here to call my mobile: +39 3472 752630

Please click here to send a text message to my mobile, if you can’t get through.

email: info [at] cameraetrusca.com

©2020 Camera Etrusca - Photo Workshops - Patrick Nicholas Photographer