Rome's First Holocaust Monument (by Angelo Di Castro) and the Verano Cemetery

Rome, Italy. Campo Verano Cemetery, Jewish Section. Holocaust Memorial. Angelo Di Castro, architect, 1952. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2023.

Rome, Italy. Campo Verano Cemetery, Jewish Section. Holocaust Memorial and Beit Tahara. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2023.

Rome's First Holocaust Monument (by Angelo Di Castro) and the Verano Cemetery

by Samuel D. Gruber

Because I recently wrote about the Livorno Synagogue designed by Roman Jewish architect Angelo Di Castro, I thought I would also post about one of his most important but least known works in Rome. This is the modest but effective Holocaust memorial in the Jewish section of the great Verano Cemetery in the city's San Lorenzo district. The monument was erected in 1952 as Rome's first Holocaust memorial, and it is one of the first in Italy. I'm still working on a full chronology of Holocaust memorials in Italy, so should know better exactly where this fits in later this year. The monument was made for Jews. Like most memorials erected in the 1940s and 1950s this was for communal remembrance. Europe, and Europe's Christians, were too busy recovering from the ravages of the war to care much about Jews. For the majority, and for governments, too, the horrible fate of Jews in the Holocaust was, after just a short time of attention when camps were liberated, swept under the rug. Outside of the Jewish community the Holocaust, when it was invoked, was done so for political reasons, not commemorative ones. The post-war years in Italy almost led to a civil war (as in Greece), and Holocaust memory had to compete with many other historical narratives. In Italy, like France, the anti-Communist government - and the Catholic Church - had to work hard to distance themselves from their fascist past. Jews were left to their concerns which centered as much on the future of the new State of Israel (and whether to stay or go) than on the new democratic government of post-war Italy. Yes, there were Jews involved in post-War Italian politics, but collectively the Jewish community had its own pressing priorities. 

Rome, Italy. Campo Verano Cemetery, Gate to Jewish Section from Via Tiburtina. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2023.

Rome, Italy. Campo Verano Cemetery, Gate to Jewish Section from Via Tiburtina (from inside). Photo: Samuel Gruber 2023

The Verano Cemetery's Jewish section was founded in the 1890s with its gate located down the Via Tibertina from the main entrance. For the patient, a long visit to read the stones presents a history of Rome's Jewish community since Emancipation. 

In 1934, the old Jewish cemetery on the Aventine was destroyed on Mussolini’s orders to build the Via Del Circo Massimo along the edge of the Aventine above the Circus Maximus (Circo Massimo), all part of Mussolini's creation of his Third Rome. The Verano then became the only Jewish cemetery in the city. There may have been an earlier Jewsih cemetery on the Aventine (as indicated on the 1748 Nolli map), but the one overlooking the Circo Massimo had been allowed to the city's Jews after 1645 by Pope Urban VIII when an even older burial ground in Trastevere (discovered in 2017) was destroyed to allow the construction of that Pope's sponsored new city walls. Today the city's Roseto Comunale (Rose Garden) occupies the cemetery site.

Rome, Italy. Roseto Comunale (Rome Garden) on Aventine Hill, site of Jewish Cemetery. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2023.

 

Rome, Italy. Roseto Comunale (Rome Garden) on Aventine Hill, Memoiral marker for Jewish Cemetery. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2023

On a recent visit to Rome I headed out to the cemetery by bus. Despite having spent a lot of time in the city since the 1970s, this was trip was a first. The vast cemetery extends over 83 hectares (a bout 205 acres) behind the early Christian church of San Lorenzo. At first, I entered the cemetery through the impressive main gate into a expansive court lined by large Christian mausolea and statuary.

Rome, Italy. Campo Verano Cemetery, main entrance. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2023.

Rome, Italy. Campo Verano Cemetery, courtyard inside main entrance. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2023.

Looking at a map, however, it seemed that entry from this way into the Jewish section would not be possible (I was wrong), so I exited again and began to walk about a kilometer along the Via Tiburtina side of the cemetery – a very desolate walk – to find the exclusive entry to the Jewish section.  This is a big gate to allow the entry of hearses, but when I got there is was locked. My map suggested another entrance to the cemetery further on, and eventually I reached this at the far northeast corner of the vast complex. A guard informed me that yes, I could come in this way and wend my way to the Jewish section.  

So I came into this overgrown place, almost devoid of light, from the wrong direction, but finally hopeful. I found a path roughly parallel to the outer wall and essentially stumbled down into a central area of the Jewish section, The monumental gate (the one that was locked) was to my right, and dark and brooding Beit Tahara (Mortuary chapel), was to my left. Jewish graves of all shapes and sizes lines the sides of this space, and extended on the long sides, and then behind and beyond the chapel.  

Rome, Italy. Campo Verano Cemetery, Jewish Section.  Beit Tahara, Mario Moretti, architect. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2023.

The dark and brooding Beit Tahara was designed by city architect Mario Moretti (1845-1921), around the turn of the 20th-century (but I have not yet found a date). In its blocky and vaguely Egyptian style, it echoes the great square-domed Tempio Maggiore of Rome, opened in 1904.  In front of this, and seeming very slight by comparison, was my goal, the memorial monument designed di Castro.  The monument is set on an axis with the chapel within a small, oblong raised bed bordered by a stone curb. The stele is set to the back of the oval (closer to the Beit Tahara).

Rome, Italy. Campo Verano Cemetery, Jewish Section. Holocaust Memorial. Angelo Di Castro, architect, 1952. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2023.

Rome, Italy. Campo Verano Cemetery, Jewish Section. Holocaust Memorial. Angelo Di Castro, architect, 1952. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2023.

The monument takes the traditional stele form and shapes it by narrowing slightly toward the top. This gives it a somewhat trapezoidal shape when seen from the front. The thickness of the stele narrows as it rises, giving it a wedge-shaped form. It is .86 meters wide and approximately 2.26 meters high (I measured it for the Holocaust Memorial Monument Database). It is slightly curved with the concave and the back convex. All these adjustments give the monument a supple dynamism, a popular device in Italian modernism of the 1930s, and a distinctive element in the style of architect Angelo Di Castro. A traditional Decalogue (Tablets of the Law with the Ten Commandments) is the only decoration and below this are commemorative inscriptions in Hebrew and Italian. A few years later di Castro would design the more forward looking synagogue in Livorno.

Rome, Italy. Campo Verano Cemetery, Jewish Section. Holocaust Memorial. Angelo Di Castro, architect, 1952. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2023.

Rome, Italy. Campo Verano Cemetery, Jewish Section. Holocaust Memorial. Angelo Di Castro, architect, 1952. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2023.

Rome, Italy. Campo Verano Cemetery, Jewish Section. Holocaust Memorial. Angelo Di Castro, architect, 1952. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2023.

Hebrew:

לזכר

הקדושים בני קהילתנו שהלכו בשבי אל ארץ אויב
ומסרו נפשותם על קדושת ה' מתוך [ומחמס] יגאל נפשם

Translation: To remember / The martyrs of our community who went into captivity to an enemy land / and they surrendered their souls to the holiness of God [from out of violence], their souls will be redeemed.

Italian:

Ai duemilanovantuno Ebrei Romani
vittime delle
deportazioni naziste
16 Ottebre 1943 - 4 Giugno 1944

Gli Ebrei Romani posero il 16 Ottobre 1952
27 Tishri 5713

Translation: To the two thousand ninety-one Roman Jews, victims of Nazi deportations, October 16, 1943 – June 4, 1944 / The Roman Jews dedicate this 16 October 1952 / 27 Tishri 5713

There is a small grass area in front of the monument, flanked by concrete containers for flowers, and there are three metal boxes for memorial candles in front.

More of my pictures are posted here: https://cja.huji.ac.il/hmm/browser.php?mode=set&id=50489

In subsequent decades more memorials to Rome's Jews murdered by the Nazis have been created around Rome. With the exception of the memorials at the Fosse Ardeatine on the Via Appia - the site where 75 Jews were murdered along with 260 other Romans - all Rome's Holocaust memorials are plaques and inscriptions. There is no public art, no sculptural or architectural monuments. In a city that has experience Jewish trauma since slaves were brought to Rome by Titus after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE, and the Ghetto was created in 1555, these memorials to the 2,091 Jews deported and murdered are "just" more markers within the wide and deep commemorative landscape of Jewish Rome.

The sun was setting as I left the Campo Verano cemetery.  The sign said entry ended at 6:00, but the cemetery was open until 7:00, a schedule I accepted without question.  I decided to find my way to the main entrance via acres of tombs. I got a little lost, but made it there before 7, but the gate was already padlocked. And so were all the other gates I ran to. I started shouting "Aiuto!" and looking for help. Finally in the distance I saw a car ...I ran after it and found one side entrance open. I was panting, weaty and frantic, but the caretakers had a good laugh. They were about to begin their rounds - by car - looking for lost souls like me. But they did warn me for next time - about not getting locked in with the dead.

Stay tuned for more on this as I prepare a series of lectures on the history of the Jews of Rome for the Community Scholars Program (CSP) to be delivered live - but online - in July and August.

Livorno's Post-World War II Synagogue Expresses Cultural Continuity, but an Architectural Break From the Past

Livorno, Italy. Synagogue. Hand-colored engraving on paper. Ferdinando Fambrini, after Omabano Rosselli, Livorno, 1793. Also attributed to Moise del Conte. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2023.

 

Livorno, Italy. New Synagogue. Angelo di Castro, architect 1958-1962. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2004.

 

Livorno, Italy. New Synagogue. Preliminary interior concept. Angelo di Castro, architect ca. 1958. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2023.

Livorno's Post-World War II Synagogue Expresses Cultural Continuity, but an Architectural Break From the Past 

by Samuel D. Gruber

[edited 3/17/25]

In my recent post about Pitigliano I mentioned the role of another important Jewish community in Tuscany, that of Livorno (known to English travelers as Leghorn) the port city on the Tyrrhenian Sea. The history of the Jews of Livorno is unique because unlike other Jews in the 16th and 17th centuries, they were not confined to a ghetto. Livorno's Jews, because of their economic importance, were granted what was essentially political and religious autonomy within the confines of the Duchy of Tuscany.  

Livorno, as a port city, had close ties with many other centers of commerce and of Judaism throughout Europe. This was a Sephardi community, and they were closely linked with the Jews of Amsterdam and London as well as those of Venice and the Ottoman Empire.

Since the Holocaust, Jews have built only one significant synagogue in Italy - the Livorno synagogue designed by Italian Jewish architect Angelo di Castro (1962). It replaced the famous Renaissance synagogue that was badly damaged during the Second World War bombing and subsequently demolished. Built in 1591 and embellished and extended over three centuries, the earlier synagogue was considered one of the most splendid religious monuments of the European diaspora.

Livorno, Italy. Synagogue before destruction in WWII. Photo: Pinkerfeld, Synagogues of Italy.

Jewish Livorno

The Jewish community of Livorno was founded when Ferdinand I de Medici sent letters in 1593 inviting mainly Portuguese Jews to settle there and in Pisa. Ferdinand offered Jews freedom to trade and worship as well as protection from the Inquisition, and importantly at this time, no ghetto. The Ghetto of Rome had been created in 1555. The Medici wanted to develop the port of Livorno, already declared a free port in 1548, and to make nearby Pisa a trading center. 

Annie Sacerdoti in Guide to Jewish Italy writes:

“The gamble on Livorno went beyond their wildest imaginings: from an initial 114 Iberians in 1601 the Jewish population rose to 3000 and 1689, 4300 and 1784, and 5000 in 1800, an eighth of the total population. Spanish soon became the language of the community, which naturally practiced the Spanish rite. In the city, Bagitto (a mixture of Italian, Spanish, and Jewish) became the lingua franca. Jewish cooking blended with Livorno cuisine.”

The Jews mainly lived around the port, in the Main Street, via Grande or via Ferdinando, and adjoining streets.

 “The synagogue was at Trivio della Bertola. The building was demolished in 1908. This area was then redeveloped after slum clearances in the historic center. From the 16th to 18th century due to its prosperity and vitality the Livorno group was a cultural reference point for the whole western diaspora. But after being damaged by the Napoleonic blockade and having lost its status as a free port, Livorno went into decline and with it the Jewish community. From 4500 members in 1852 its numbers dropped to 2500 at the beginning of the 20th century after the Second World War deportation of 90 people, the community numbers fell to the present 600 members.” (Sacerdoti)

The Old Synagogue (Destroyed)

Livorno had a large and extremely ornate synagogue, the pride of the community and one of the most famous Jewish sites within Italy. The interior of the synagogue is well known to lovers of Jewish art as the scene of a famous oil painting of 1850, The Feast in the Rejoicing of the Law at the Synagogue in Leghorn, Italy, by the Anglo-Jewish artist Solomon Alexander Hart, now in the Jewish Museum in New York.

Solomon Alexander Hart (1806-1881), The Feast in the Rejoicing of the Law at the Synagogue in Leghorn, Italy, 1850.  The Jewish Museum, New York.

This now-destroyed synagogue was one of the first Italian synagogues I became familiar with when I began my studies of Jewish architecture.  My very first “Jewish” publication was a series of entries that described this building and some others for the catalogue of the important Gardens and Ghettos exhibition at the Jewish Museum in 1989. The catalogue is still an essential reference on Italian Jewish art and architecture. Here, I’ll just quote my younger self about the Great Synagogue of Livorno:

[The synagogue] … was expanded and remodeled many times over the centuries in response to the growing numbers and wealth of Livorno’s Jews. The synagogue was in existence before 1640, when it was expanded into adjacent houses, and it was enlarged again in 1693, when it was joined with another building and the interior was surrounded on three sides by arcades. Donors had their names inscribed on the gallery parapets.

 

In 1740 the marble ark, composed of four columns that supported a heavy scrolled and garlanded pediment, was designed by the sculptor Giovanni de Isidoro Barata of Carrara. It was installed in 1742. Barata was also commissioned to design a matching bimah, but a design by David Nunez was the one that was executed in 1743. This was a polygonal marble platform surrounded by a balustrade. In their colorful curvilinear designs, both ark and bemah recall temporary baroque furnishings.

 

In the 18th century, when earthquakes threatened the synagogue stability, Ignacio Azzi was employed to remedy the situation and to add an extra women's gallery above the existing one period work was completed in 1789. The hall measured 25.8 by 28.2 meters, with three tiers of arches surrounding the central space, which contained ark and bemah. The arcades consisted of wide bays, articulated with Tuscan columns on the ground level and ionic pilasters above. Elaborate grilles further separated the women's galleries from the central space; The interior was richly decorated, with gold lettered inscriptions on walls and ceiling.

 

The synagogue was remodeled again in 1846-48. Jewish symbols were substituted for some early decorations, and chandeliers and red curtains were added. The bemah was enlarged to accommodate a choir, and the arc was raised. Subsequent changes included new doors for the arc in the 1875 and the installation of an organ in 1903.”

 

Livorno Synagogue interior view, 1863. Print on paper.  Communita Ebraica di Livorno. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2023.

Livorno Synagogue interior view, 1863, detail. Print on paper. Communita Ebraica di Livorno. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2023.

The synagogue, which ranked with the Portuguese Synagogue (Esnoga) of Amsterdam as one of Europe’s central places of Sephardi worship, was mostly destroyed by Allied bombing in World War II and then torn down after the war.  There must have been competition between Livorno and Amsterdam about which city had the grander house of worship. Significantly, the Livorno synagogue was enlarged and redesigned in 1693, eighteen years after the grand opening of the Amsterdam synagogue. Unfortunately, because of the different circumstances of Catholic Tuscany and Protestant Holland, there was no rich tradition of representation of the Livorno synagogue in prints and paintings. Images of the Amsterdam circulated widely, and internationally, the influence of the Esnoga proved much greater

For a more detailed history of the building which went through many phases see Carol Herselle Krinsky's still excellent Synagogues of Europe (Cambridge, MA, 1985), pp. 352-354.

The New Synagogue

Remarkably the Jews of Livorno did not give up hope after the destruction of their sacred home. When the community decided to rebuild the synagogue in the 1950s, some favored reconstructing the earlier synagogue or making a simpler version, while others recognizing the War and the Holocaust as a break in history, wanted a modern building. The modernists won the debate and Jewish architect Angelo di Castro was chosen for the job.

Livorno, Italy. New Synagogue. Interior concept. Angelo di Castro, architect ca. 1958. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2023.

The choice sent a distinctive signal to post-war Europe. The stridently modern Sephardic synagogue proudly announced to the world that while Italian Jews not only still lived, prayed, and identified with their long and illustrious past, that also were looking forward.  Many aspects of the strikingly modern synagogue recalled biblical and Italian Jewish precedents, but in its materials and construction, the design it looked to the future.

There was, however, a successful compromise in the design. In 1970, an 18th-century Aron ha Kodesh from Pesaro was added as the focal point of the design, thus uniting past and present while looking ahead.  This mix of old and new has become more common. In America, my favorite examples in Michael Landau’s 1976 design for Beth Or in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Livorno, Italy. New Synagogue. Angelo di Castro, architect 1958-1962. Ark by Angelo Scoccianti (1708) originally from Cupramontana. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2004.

 

Raleigh, North Carolina, Temple Beth Or. Michael Landau, architect, 1976. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2024.

The new Livorno synagogue was opened on via del Tempio at Piazza Elia Benamozegh in 1962. Di Castro had begun his designs for the building in 1956, and a series of dynamics probably date to the period 1956-58.

Until recently the Livorno synagogue was the indisputably the most dramatic postwar European synagogue (perhaps the synagogue in Mainz, Germany now takes that title). On the outside, the new expressive structure is defined by a series of crooked concrete buttresses, which are connected by concrete walls. The buttresses appear to exert intense pressure to keep the building together.  This construction allows a large unimpeded interior sanctuary, where, as in the Renaissance predecessor, there is seating all round.

Made of reinforced concrete, the exterior was formed by a series of molded flying buttresses that broadened upwards pierced by two orders of hexagonal stained glass windows, with dark blue as the main color. At the top is a long window with red panes. The entrance portal is embellished with stylized Ten Commandments.  The two side doors are adorned with seven-branched menorahs. The monumental prayer room alludes to the image of the Mishkhan (tabernacle). The bimah stands at the center, raised on a small podium with steps and a marble balustrade, both from the previous synagogue.

The ark is set opposite and cleverly highlighted at the point where the pitched roof and pilasters form an ideal Tabernacle. Dated 1708, this baroque ark was made by the cabinet maker Angelo Scoccianti from Cupramontana in the Marches. It was brought to Livorno in 1970 from the Spanish synagogue in Pesaro, to replace the original. The arks doors are framed by two columns resting on a base and surmounted by a crown made of gilded carved wooden garlands. I do not know what was used for an ark in the intervening years from 1962-1970. 

At the side the 17th-century wooden seats are for use by the rabbi and congregational leaders. Behind them hang two parochet curtains dated 1784 and 1814. Two flights of steps behind the ark lead to the Lampronti Oratory on the lower floor. The whole area is surrounded by iron railings. The benches and the women's gallery stretch around three sides of the room. The floor has various colors, walnut and blue in the central area with the bimah and benches, white and blue around the ark.

The main sanctuary is used for major festivities, while everyday services are held in the Lampromti Oratory. This has a rectangular plan, with ark and bimah opposite each other on the long sides of the room. The 17th-century furnishings come from the Spanish synagogue in Ferrara. 

Many have found the post-War Livorno synagogue brutal in its appearance. At the time it was built, however, it was seen as a powerful assertion of Jewish perseverance and presence. What some see as ugliness should be viewed in the context of the popular postwar engineering aesthetic in Italy and in view of the widespread adoption of the post-planning principles espoused by Le Corbusier and others. In this light, de Castro’s Livorno synagogue appears expressive and almost poetic in its unusual form and subtlety-lit interior.

I have not been back to Livorno in twenty years. Writing this inspires a return visit. 

Angelo di Castro

Di Castro is an interesting figure in 20^th-century Italian design. He was already a successful modernist during the fascist period, but like all Jewish architects at the time, his career was stripped from him with the passing in 1938 of the Racial Laws that barred Jews from all occupations. Unlike some of his Jewish contemporaries who went into permanent exile, and others who faded into obscurity, di Castro was able to rebuild his career after the war. Much of his patronage came from the Jewish community, including in Livorno, but especially in his home city of Rome. In 2023, Di Castro was included in an exhibition of expelled Jewish architects mounted at MAXXI in Rome, probably the first time this episode of Italian architectural history had been examined.

Di Castro graduated from the Royal School of Architecture in Rome in 1924, and his career developed in tandem with Fascism and Italy’s modernization in the interwar period.  Most of his projects in the 1920s were residential buildings; and in the 1930s he began to submit proposals public building competitions, including those in the new Fascist town of Littorio, and for the Piazza Imperiale at the E42 exposition in what is now Rome’s EUR. The E42 competition was announced in 1938 but soon the first racial laws were published, and Di Castro was removed from the competition in second phase. That was his last work until after the war.

Unlike many Jewish colleagues Di Castro was able to resume architectural work as an architect during the busy period of post-war reconstruction, and it was during this period that his brand of modernism became increasingly expressive – and even decorative. To me, in his Livorno design and his apartment building in Rome, he seems to have been influenced by the late work of Frank Lloyd Wright. He was beginning the Livorno synagogue just as Wright’s highly-publicized Beth Shalom synagogue in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania was nearing completion.  Besides the Livorno Synagogue (1962), di Castro also built around this time the Jewish primary school on the Tiber promenade (1955-58), and he designed in 1956 with Marco Fiorentino, an apartment building in which he and many Roman Jews would live on Viale Tiziano 108.

Rome, Italy. Primary school V. Polacco on Lungotevere, 1955-58. Angelo di Castro, architect. Photo: Collezione MAXXI Architettura, Archivio di Castro. 

Rome, Italy. Primary school V. Polacco on Lungotevere, 1955-58. Angelo di Castro, architect. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2023.

Rome, Italy, Apartment house at Viale Tiziano 108. Angelo di Castro and Mario Fiorentino, architects, 1956. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2023.

Rome, Italy, Apartment house at Viale Tiziano 108. Interior detail. Angelo di Castro and Mario Fiorentino, architects, 1956. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2023.

Rome, Italy, Apartment house at Viale Tiziano 108. Funky elevator design! Angelo di Castro and Mario Fiorentino, architects, 1956. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2023.