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Sunday 7 September 2008

Last farewells

The English cemetry of Florence

Sister Julia plunges her meagre pension and royalties from books on Dante, Chaucer and Elizabeth Barrett Browning into the cemetery. Helped by gypsies and her assistant, she tends the cemetery’s axial paths, shores up its crumbling walls and directs the restoration of the tombs, made of the friable local stone, pietra serena; 28 have just been restored by a female Bavarian stonemason in return for a tomb. The pomegranates she has planted next to the three poets are flourishing, as does the papyrus grown to recall the Egyptian theme on Clough’s tombstone.

Recently arrived to help Sister Julia with the cemetery garden is a Chelsea Flower Show silver medal-winner, Tiggy Salt of Green Ink Gardens, London. Miss Salt has been asked by Syracuse University, New York, to restore the graves of their Italian benefactors, the Count and Countess Gigliucci. Playing on their surname, she is planting giglio — or lilium regale — which appears on the family stemma. She is also keen on using iris pallida — the three-stemmed purple iris that is the symbol of Florence — to line the cemetery’s central path. Her aim has been to mix English icons like climbing roses (Dorothy Perkins, in this case) with plants that can withstand the severe heat of Italy, which she studied while working at Harold Acton’s garden up the hill at Villa La Pietra. Wild strawberries will grow alongside Roman camomile; forget-me-not and rosemary for remembrance next to golden thyme.

Miss Salt has also brought over a mixed bunch of English daffodil bulbs to recall the faraway home of many of those lying in this giardino Inglese–Italiano, so redolent with the air of both countries.

The English Cemetery is open Monday 9–12 a.m., Tuesday to Friday 2–5 p.m. in
winter, 3–6 p.m. in summer. For donations, contact Sister Julia Holloway on
juliana@tin.it

More articles from: Harry Mount | this section

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