The New Jewish Cemetery

The Jewish cemetery in Via Mei in Livorno, behind the municipal one of La Cigna, is more recent than the other in Via Ippolito Nievo (which only has bodies from the nineteenth century and is in a state of decay) since it was opened in 1900. It is of great historical value, it contains the tombstones and cenotaphs (not the remains) of the very first cemeteries of the Jewish community, even dating back to the seventeenth century, now demolished.

With the Livornine laws of 1593 the Jewish community became more and more numerous in the city and requested larger burial grounds. Jewish law dictates that the body be buried, not closed in columbaria or niches where there is an unnatural decomposition, and never moved from the original burial place. This involves the enormous expansion of the cemetery. The first cemetery was located near the Bassata beach, the second near the Old Fortress, the third in via Ippolito Nievo and the last, the one we are talking about, in Via Mei.

Built to a design by the architect Alberto Adriano Padova, it has at the entrance, next to the wrought iron gate, a fountain in marble and pietra serena with an image reminiscent of a well. It bears the date 1901, the year following the opening of the burial ground. The water was used for washing at the exit as crossing a cemetery was considered unclean.

In a corner we discover blocks of marble stacked in bulk. They were found during the demolition of some council houses in a suburb of the city. Apparently they belonged to a cemetery that was dismantled after the racial laws.

The cemetery is large, well cared for, pleasant, rich in vegetation with a symbolic value such as olive and boxwood. The tombs have no photography since the cult of images is considered idolatry and flowers are not used as offerings but stones. Some tombstones have special recesses where to insert the stones. The tombs are of different nature, from the simplest, to the family chapels with neo-Gothic motifs, twisted columns or two-tone marble.

As we have said, the oldest tombstones are preserved here, in the shape of a triangular prism, similar to the contemporary ones of the ancient English cemetery. The most archaic decorations are pagan and secular in nature: moths, faci, birds, snakes biting their tails, Masonic symbols. Priests have blessing hands with open fingers carved on their tombstones. During life, Jewish priests cannot enter the cemetery, which is considered, as we have said, an impure place.

The more modern tombs show a progressive rediscovery of religion and orthodoxy, with an abundance of Stars of David and menorah, the seven-branched candelabra that originally protected, in the temple of Solomon, the sancta sanctorum where the Ark of the Alliance was kept.

The Leghorn Jews are mainly of Sephardi origin, in ancient times they spoke a Portuguese Hebrew dialect, the bagitto, which clearly influenced the local vernacular with words still in use today such as “sciagattare” and “bobo”.

The names on the tombstones recall many of the most illustrious families of the Livorno trade, from the Corcos, to the Attias, to the Chayes, famous for the processing of coral. We find some heroes of the wars of independence, a librettist of the Cavalleria Rusticana, the poetess Angelica Palli, and the family of the most famous Leghorn Jew in the world, Amedeo Modigliani, is buried here, while he is remembered only by a tombstone since his remains are in the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris