The Day of the Dead
How Italy remembers its dead
While Italians are slowly catching up with the commercialisation of Halloween, Italy is miles ahead when it comes to celebrating the dead.
The 1st November, All-Saints Day, is a national holiday in Italy. The 2nd November, though, is Il Giorno dei Morti, the day of the dead.
On this day it is customary to light candles and visit the graves of deceased relatives.
Not wanting to miss out on this expression of reverence for the deceased, we decided to mark the occasion ourselves by tracking down the memorial at Monte Comun, where the Jewish partisan Rita Rosani was killed during the second world war.
It was a beautiful bright Sunday morning in Verona and, armed with a map and a camera, we set off early, stopping en route at a florist outside the local cemetery. It was already busy. Cars were double parked as people flocked to the graveyard. Ten minutes and a €20 bouquet later, we were soon climbing up the hills behind Quinzano to the north of Verona.
It had been difficult to pinpoint beforehand exactly where the memorial was located, so we weren’t entirely sure that we would be able to find it. Sure enough, we made a couple of wrong turns along the way, before eventually finding ourselves in the country lanes high above the city to the north of Montecchio. Somehow we stumbled upon a sign to Monte Comun. Encouraged, we soon arrived at the sleepy hamlet.
A private road in one direction, a dirt track in the other, we decided to abandon the car and set off on foot along the dirt track. It soon proved to be something of a dead end and we turned back towards the car. While a delicate mist shrouded the valleys below, the high pastures of Monte Comun shone in the afternoon sunshine. But still, there was no sign of the memorial.
As we are about to give up our search, a car passed which we rather desperately flagged down. “Take the private road”, they told us, and once again we set off on foot, this time along the narrow track.
Passing a few houses, we soon arrived at an area of well-maintained woodland. I realised, with intense relief, that we had found the place we were looking for. Behind a row of ornamental graveyard cypresses, a series of inscribed stones encircle an ageing cenotaph inscribed with the words “Rita Rosani” and “Dino Degani”, the names of the two young partisans who died here 70 years ago. Behind the memorial, a shady forest of conifers atop a carpet of brown needles.
The afternoon was quickly passing and the temperature in the hills was falling sharply. The sun soon disappeared below the mountains to the west.
Trying to comprehend what happened here 70 years ago, we left our bouquet and trudged back down the road towards the car.
Like millions of other Italians, today we remember the dead.
