Rome - Protestant Cemetery
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| Rome's Protestant Cemetery is small, and
is divided roughly into two halves. The
section in which Shelley's ashes are buried
faces the entrance gate, and is densely
crowded with gravestones. Shelley's grave is
set off in a sheltered area at the
rear—the roof can be seen between the
trees in the first photo below. Next to him
is buried his friend Edward Trelawny, who
died in England in 1881. |
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| The inscription on Shelley's gravestone
assures the reader that "Nothing of him that
doth fade, / But doth suffer a sea-change /
Into something rich and strange." |
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Unhappily, Shelley's remains suffered
not only a sea-change but a variety of
other transformations before arriving at
the cemetery. A number of romanticized
paintings depict Shelley’s cremation:
the young poet lies serenely atop his bier,
surrounded by his friends (including Byron)
and grieving widow.
Actually, what was left of
Shelley’s body was hardly in any
condition to be painted. The corpse had
washed up some ten days after the drowning
and all exposed flesh was
gone—Shelley was identified by his
socks, trousers, and a volume of
Keats’s poetry in his pocket. The
body was then covered in quicklime and
temporarily buried in a shallow grave until
permission for cremation could be acquired.
Mary did not attend the cremation; Byron
was there for a short time but got nauseous
and had to leave. The ashes were eventually
transferred to the Protestant cemetery in
Rome.
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| John Keats is buried in the less
populated, more parklike section of the
cemetery, in a quiet corner close to the
Pyramid (seen here in a contemporary
drawing). |
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| Like Shelley, he rests next to a
friend—in this case, the artist Joseph
Severn, who cared for Keats during his last
illness and drew the young poet's final
portrait. |
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| Between them lies the grave of Severn's
son. |
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| Not far away is the gravesite of William
("Willmouse") Shelley, who died in Rome on 7
June 1819, at the age of three. |
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| The Protestant Cemetery is near the
Pyramid metro stop; it lies behind the
Pyramid itself, and is locked up at 5:30
PM. |
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