Discover Non-Catholic Cemetery

The Non-Catholic Cemetery — Cimitero Acattolico, also called the Protestant Cemetery or the English Cemetery — is a private cemetery in the rione of Testaccio in Rome. It lies near Porta San Paolo and directly against the Pyramid of Cestius, a small Egyptian-style pyramid built as a tomb between 18 and 12 BCE and later incorporated into the stretch of the Aurelian Walls that forms the cemetery's boundary.

It is the burial ground of non-Catholics who died in Rome or elsewhere in Italy — not only Protestants and not only the British. The earliest known burial is that of a Dr Arthur, a Protestant physician from Edinburgh, in 1716, and the operator describes it as an active burial ground ever since, with over 6,000 burials.

Its two most visited graves are those of the English poets John Keats, who died in Rome at 25, and Percy Bysshe Shelley, drowned off the Italian coast the following year. The Russian painter Karl Briullov is here too. So are a small number of Italians buried on the grounds of having been, in one way or another, foreign in their own country: Antonio Gramsci, Emilio Lussu, Carlo Emilio Gadda, Dario Bellezza, Luce d'Eramo, the novelist Andrea Camilleri (2019) and the former President of Italy Giorgio Napolitano (2023).

Mediterranean cypress, pomegranate and a grassy meadow grow among the tombs, and there are no photographs on the headstones.

The Non-Catholic Cemetery — Cimitero Acattolico, also called the Protestant Cemetery or the English Cemetery — is a private cemetery in the rione of Testaccio in Rome. It lies near Porta San Paolo and directly against the Pyramid of Cestius, a small Egyptian-style pyramid built as a tomb between 18 and 12 BCE and later incorporated into the stretch of the Aurelian Walls that forms the cemetery's boundary.

It is the burial ground of non-Catholics who died in Rome or elsewhere in Italy — not only Protestants and not only the British. The earliest known burial is that of a Dr Arthur, a Protestant physician from Edinburgh, in 1716, and the operator describes it as an active burial ground ever since, with over 6,000 burials.

Its two most visited graves are those of the English poets John Keats, who died in Rome at 25, and Percy Bysshe Shelley, drowned off the Italian coast the following year. The Russian painter Karl Briullov is here too. So are a small number of Italians buried on the grounds of having been, in one way or another, foreign in their own country: Antonio Gramsci, Emilio Lussu, Carlo Emilio Gadda, Dario Bellezza, Luce d'Eramo, the novelist Andrea Camilleri (2019) and the former President of Italy Giorgio Napolitano (2023).

Mediterranean cypress, pomegranate and a grassy meadow grow among the tombs, and there are no photographs on the headstones.

The Pyramid is the architecture, and it was here first. The Pyramid of Cestius was built as a tomb between 18 and 12 BCE, in an Egyptian style that was briefly fashionable in Rome, and the Aurelian Walls were later run straight into it — so the cemetery's boundary is a third-century fortification with a first-century BCE tomb set in it. The graves accumulated against that.

Nothing here was designed as a whole. The ground was public meadow, the burials were unofficial for a century, and the layout is what a century of individual decisions produced. The moat of 1824 gave the oldest section its edge; the cypresses that now define the place were planted later still, after a period when only holly grew here.

The monuments are where the art is. The best known is the Angel of Grief, carved by the American sculptor William Wetmore Story over the grave he shares with his wife Emelyn — a winged figure collapsed face-down across the tomb, and among the most copied funerary sculptures anywhere. August von Goethe, son of the poet, has a monument carrying a medallion by Bertel Thorvaldsen. Rosa Bathurst, drowned in the Tiber at sixteen, has one by Richard Westmacott.

And one rule shapes the whole look of it: there are no photographs on the tombstones. In an Italian cemetery that absence is the first thing a local notices.

It was not built. It was permitted, and then it accumulated. Church law forbade burying non-Catholics — Protestants, Jews, Orthodox — in consecrated ground, along with suicides. In 1671 the Holy Office consented that non-Catholics dying in Rome be spared the disgrace of the Muro Torto burial ground, and the non-Catholics themselves chose this spot: public land beside the Pyramid of Cestius, known as "the meadows of the Roman people", where drovers grazed cattle.

For a century it had no standing at all. The earliest known burial is from 1716. Funerals were held at night, to avoid demonstrations of religious fanaticism and to keep the mourners safe — an exception in 1821, when Sir Walter Synnot buried his daughter in daylight under guard, is remembered precisely because it was one. Papal authorities took no interest until the end of the eighteenth century, and a custodian was not appointed until the 1820s. The indifference had a logic: in a world where the only burial that counted happened in a church, a cemetery for non-Catholic burial did not look like a privilege worth regulating.

The physical place came later than the graves. At the start of the nineteenth century there was no wall, no fence and no planting — only holly, and tombs scattered in open countryside. The moat of 1824 enclosed the oldest section. The cypresses that now give the cemetery its character were planted afterwards. Crosses and inscriptions were forbidden until 1870.

It has been divided by nation as much as by faith. For a long period there were common graves for Germany, Greece, Sweden and Romania. Since 2011 the custody and management of the cemetery has rested with foreign representatives in Italy — which is why a burial ground in the middle of Rome is run by foreign embassies and funded by the coins visitors leave.

Do I need a ticket? No. It is a private burial ground and there is no admission charge, but the Cemetery asks each visitor to contribute at least €5.00 towards its operating costs. Bring cash.

What are the opening hours? Monday to Saturday 9.00–17.00, last entrance 16.30. Sundays and public holidays 9.00–13.00, last entrance 12.30. It also closes over Christmas, New Year and Epiphany.

Are there guided tours? Not at present. Group visits can be arranged — a maximum of 14 visitors, booked two to three weeks ahead by email to mail@cemeteryrome.it — but the Cemetery is not offering guided tours for the time being.

Can I take photographs? Individual visitors are asked to limit them as much as possible and not to post them on social media. A booked group's leader undertakes that photographs will not be posted online at all.

Who is buried here? John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley; the painter Karl Briullov; August von Goethe; the sculptor William Wetmore Story under his own Angel of Grief; Antonio Gramsci, Carlo Emilio Gadda, Dario Bellezza, Luce d'Eramo, Emilio Lussu, Andrea Camilleri and Giorgio Napolitano; and some six thousand others.

Why is there a pyramid? The Pyramid of Cestius was built as a tomb between 18 and 12 BCE, when Egyptian styling was briefly fashionable in Rome, and was later incorporated into the Aurelian Walls that border the cemetery. It was here roughly seventeen centuries before the first burial.

How old is the cemetery? The earliest known burial is from 1716 — a Protestant doctor from Edinburgh named Arthur — which makes it one of the oldest burial grounds in Europe still in use.

Is it wheelchair accessible? The operator publishes no information about access, paths or gradients. Contact the Cemetery directly rather than relying on second-hand descriptions.

What about the cats? They live in and around the cemetery and are fed and cared for by the volunteers of I Gatti della Piramide, the charity running the cat sanctuary beside the Pyramid.