History
The San Girolamo della Certosa monastery cloisters and grounds became the city cemetery from 1801.

The Sala della Pietà with its elliptical staircase dates from the earliest period of adaptation. From 1816 to 1834 the main galleries were built: in 1816 the Sala delle Tombe; in 1833, the Loggiato delle Tombe and then the Sala Gemina and the Colombario with its three naves, inspired by Roman thermal architecture. The building of the Elliptical Hall, a small space to connect the 19th and 20th-century halls followed 1834. In 1860 the previous Chapel of the Suffrages was turned into the Gallery of Angels followed by the Three-Aisled Gallery connecting the structures built until then. At the start of the 20th century the  6th cloister, with the World War I memorial, and the 8th’ and the 9th cloister were built.

The discovery of an Etruscan tomb here, during work to extend the cemetery, resulted in major excavation work, uncovering the Etruscan necropolis of Felsina in 1869, which had been in use from the 6th to the 3rd centuries BC. This leading to the founding of the Museo Civico Archaeologico in 1881, mostly to house the items found here.

The spectacular galleries and decorated family tombs of the local nobility got the cemetery a reputation as an open-air museum and a necessary stop-off in Italian grand tour -  Byron, Dickens, Sigmund Freud and Stendhal were notable visitors who wrote about their visits. 

Amongst the poets, politicians and painters buried here are the singers Farinelli and Lucio Dalla, artists Mauro and Gaetano Gandolfi and Giorgio Morandi, the composer Respighi and motor manufacturers Alfieri Maserati and Ferruccio Lamborghini.

Cemetery opening times
Summer (from 1/3 to 2/11)
7.00am to 6.00pm
Winter (from 3/11 to 28/02)
8.00am to 5.00pm

The Certosa Cemetery website

The Museo Civico del Risorgimento website
of which the cemetery is part.

The Memorial to the Partisans