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April 17, 2008
Verano
I had planned to go up to San Lorenzo fuori le mura (St. Lawrence outside the walls) even before I knew it was a grey and melancholy-looking day. It's a long ride! When I got up there I remembered that I had never been to San Lorenzo alone, and no one is ever willing to indulge my hobby of monument-choosing.
What's more, there was a funeral in the basilica, so I had to find something to do - and here it is: the Verano Cemetery set. Lots of good stuff!
This is a typical street of Columbaria - the cubbyhole tombs that ought to remind you of catacombs. All sorts of sizes are available - from something approximately 12"x12" (and I have no idea how deep) to these bigger ones. Columbarium in Latin means dovecote, which is obviously descriptive - these are the homes for the doves of our spirits?
My favorite inscription in the whole place - NO TEARS, FEW FLOWERS, MANY PRAYERS. I think I'm going to have that carved on my tomb.
Further: I put all this interest in intermediate resting places down to being born and raised in Tennessee of Alabamian and Tennessean parentage, and parents with a serious interest in genealogy and graveyard-going. I am really, really Southern, no matter how I might sound when I talk. There was a particularly horrible novel of the 70s called Kinflicks. The one person I sympathized with was the mother, who had her funeral plans and grave stone text in a pre-announced pigeon hole of her desk, just in case she passed in the night. What can I say - the grotesque in Southern literature is in YOUR mind, not ours. For us it's part of the carnival. You know what bothers me? The fact that my parents haven't settled where they're going to be buried yet. Me, I'm all in favor of a small mausoleum on these lines in the Salem burying ground. Would we give scandal to the Associate Reformed Presbyterians? Well, one can hardly help that.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at April 17, 2008 5:08 PM
Comments
There is no metaphor involved.
Raising pigeons means building a structure ("loft" or "dovecote") with multiple open-ended compartments in which the birds may roost and nest.
Posted by: Chas S. Clifton ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.crankyprofessor.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at April 19, 2008 1:26 AM