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Photographs by Chris Naffziger
Milliken Mausoleum, Bellefontaine Cemetery.
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Photographs by Chris Naffziger
Temple of Portunus, Rome.
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Photographs by Chris Naffziger
Brown Mausoleum, Bellefontaine Cemetery.
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Photographs by Chris Naffziger
Temple of Hercules Victor, Rome.
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Photographs by Chris Naffziger
Temple of Hera, Paestum.
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Photographs by Chris Naffziger
Overall view of the Roman Forum.
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Photographs by Chris Naffziger
Column of Phocas, Roman Forum.
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Photographs by Chris Naffziger
Various Monuments, Bellefontaine Cemetery.
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Photographs by Chris Naffziger
Low-lying ruined walls of Paestum, Italy.
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Photographs by Chris Naffziger
Low-lying ruined walls of Paestum, Italy.
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Photographs by Chris Naffziger
Low-lying ruined walls of Paestum, Italy.
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Photographs by Chris Naffziger
Niedringhaus Grave, Bellefontaine Cemetery.
One of my favorite activities, when finances are amenable, is traveling to Europe, particularly Italy, from whence most of the architecture of the Western World originates. I find that my credibility strengthens when I talk about a building that I’ve actually seen in real life, instead of it remaining a two-dimensional abstract concept on a screen. It’s one thing to say New York’s Pennsylvania Railroad Station and our own Saint Louis Art Museum are based off of the design of the Roman Imperial Baths of Caracalla in the Eternal City; it’s another thing to actually walk the ruined halls of the ancient building, imagining that Cass Gilbert or Charles Follen McKim once stood in the exact spot where I was standing, gazing up at the giant brick vaults, still so majestic after 1,800 years.
I sometimes joke that there is a paucity of ancient Greek or Roman ruins in St. Louis. Or are there? Recently, while driving around Bellefontaine Cemetery, I came to a realization: there are ancient ruins in St. Louis, after all. The “rural” cemeteries in 19th-century America have clear inspiration; first and foremost, they promoted a clean and sanitary environment away from crowded urban burial grounds (read sometime about the macabre efforts of workers trying to pack another layer of bodies on top of the ones from just the previous year). St. Louis also had a legislative reason for rural cemeteries; the cholera epidemic that decimated the city in 1849 was incorrectly believed to have been caused by corpses polluting the water supply. But most importantly, the new vision of 19th-century American cemeteries was inspired by the Romantic movement, with its emphasis on ruins and rural pastoral scenes. The great poet Percy Bysshe Shelley summed up this new relationship:
“The cemetery was an open space among the ruins, covered in winter with violets and daisies. It might make one in love with death, to think that one should be buried in so sweet a place.”
Americans were increasingly traveling abroad, seeing the ruins of Pompeii and Paestum, all located within a reasonable trip from Rome. Roman Pompeii had of course been buried by a volcanic eruption, while Paestum, originally a Greek city with majestic Doric temples, was found in a dense forest south of Naples. When I look out over the rolling hills of Bellefontaine Cemetery, I see an idealized, Romantic landscape, one punctuated with low walls, intact mausolea, and single columns rising majestically above the lush green grass.
Take for example the stunning Milliken or Brown mausolea, sitting high up on Prospect Drive. While it might seem strange to see completely intact temple-like structures sitting among what should be a ruined landscape, a visitor to Rome or Paestum would have been well-acquainted with the surprising good fortune bestowed on certain ancient sanctuaries while their less august neighbors saw oblivion sometime in the last 1,500 years. The rectangular Temple of Portunus and the round Temple of Hercules Victor could very well fit in comfortably among the industrialists’ tombs in Bellefontaine. The two temples survived in such good condition due to their conversion into churches; beyond a doubt American architects were thinking about these two temples when designing mausolea. Likewise, the huge Greek temples at Paestum seem to sit almost perfectly intact—save their roofs—among a low-lying archeological site.
The Roman Forum’s monumental columns, such as the last Column on Phocas, further inspired American cemetery architects. These single columns, never intended to serve as part of a finished building, sit in various states of preservation in the heart of the Roman government’s power base, right in front of the Temple of the Divine Julius Caesar. Constructed at the very tail end of Antiquity in 608 AD, the Column of Phocas memorializes an Eastern Roman emperor that was ironically assassinated soon after its construction. On another level, the Forum, with its scattered columns that inspire memorials in Bellefontaine Cemetery, provides the archetypal Romantic landscape: a place once bustling with life, but now laid low and devoid of humans. Excavations that removed dozens of feet of debris that had obscured the original ancient pavement for over a millennium further generated interest in the historic configuration of the Forum.
Finally, looking past the largest monuments, the smallest and least visible elements of Bellefontaine Cemetery gives the impression of Romantic idealized ruins. As many visitors quickly realize, the cemetery makes use of a large number of “family plots,” both rectangular and circular. A large monument with the family’s name sits at the center, but looking down, one sees rows of small, unobtrusive grave markers for individuals, such as at one of the Niedringhaus family plots. They are arranged in straight lines, almost looking like the tops of ruined walls just barely poking up above the soil, giving the impression of a buried building. Some family plots even have short, stone walls around them, further giving the feel of the ruined walls of an old house or palace. I cannot imagine that it is merely a coincidence.
Indeed, as one looks across the vistas of Bellefontaine Cemetery, it does actually look like an ancient ruined landscape. Markers of varying height and placement are scattered about, evoking the jumbled and crumbling walls of an ancient Roman city such as Pompeii. Certainly, Americans realized the symbolism of memento mori, this reminder of Death. If even the great Roman monuments of the past can fall into ruin after standing for centuries, so too can humans face their own mortality.
Chris Naffziger writes about architecture at St. Louis Patina. Contact him via email at naffziger@gmail.com.
