Cimitero Acattolico (Non-Catholic Cemetery)

One of the most beautiful and melancholy spaces in Rome — a walled garden cemetery beside the Pyramid of Cestius and the Aurelian Walls, used since 1716 for the burial of non-Catholics in a mostly Catholic city. Shaded by tall cypress trees and Roman umbrella pines, with cats wandering between the graves, it holds the tombs of some of the most famous foreign visitors Rome ever received: John Keats ('Here lies one whose name was writ in water'), Percy Bysshe Shelley ('Nothing of him that doth fade'), Antonio Gramsci (the Italian Marxist philosopher), and the sculptor William Wetmore Story. Deeply atmospheric and strangely moving — particularly poignant given that Keats died aged 25, just steps from the Spanish Steps, having come to Rome hoping the southern climate would cure his tuberculosis. A €3 voluntary donation is requested.