EXCLUSIVE WEBINAR | “Staglieno Monumental Cemetery: Art, Memory, and the Making of Modern Burial Spaces”
Presented by Esteban Nigro
with Additional Commentary by Dr. Rocky Ruggiero

During the early nineteenth century, major transformations in European cities profoundly altered the relationship between death, memory, and public space. As burial grounds were moved outside urban centers—driven by health concerns, Enlightenment ideals, and new political regulations—the modern public cemetery emerged as a space where civic order, private mourning, and artistic expression converged.

The Monumental Cemetery of Staglieno in Genoa represents one of the most significant outcomes of this transformation. Conceived in the mid-nineteenth century, it was designed not merely as a burial ground, but as a monumental landscape in which architecture, sculpture, and nature articulated new forms of remembrance and social identity.

Staglieno is especially renowned for its funerary art. Through a rich vocabulary of allegorical figures—angels, veiled mourners, and personifications of time, hope, and virtue—the cemetery reveals how nineteenth-century European society sought to give visual form to grief, memory, and permanence.

The impact of Staglieno extended beyond Italy. Nineteenth-century American travelers and writers, including Mark Twain, encountered the cemetery as a place of exceptional emotional and artistic power, integrating it into a broader transatlantic cultural imagination.

The webinar will include a 45-minute lecture followed by 15-minutes of Q&A.

Please note:

• Your participation is confirmed once you have purchased your ticket. You will receive the Zoom Link to join the presentation circa 30 minutes before the start time.
• VIDEO RECORDING of the webinar will be available for unlimited streaming at your convenience for 7 days after the event.

Esteban Nigro is a geologist and cultural heritage tour guide, passionate about discovering history in the same place that it happened. He earned his degree in Geology from the University of Buenos Aires in 2008 and went on to study Industrial Engineering for 2 more years. After several years working as a geophysicist for Petrobas and Pampa Energia, Esteban began leading geological tours in Italy (Milan, Florence, Pisa, and the general Tuscany region) and Argentina (Buenos Aires).