Heavy duty

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No rest to be expected anytime soon for these guys at the Old English Cemetery.

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Antico Cimitero degli Inglesi

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Let’s go back to the Old English Cemetery in Livorno to have a closer look at some of the tombstones. All of these graves and sculptures are from before 1838, when the cemetery closed.

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You can find all sorts of symbols and signs and it is an exciting place to go treasure hunting for mythological animals, crests, knights, portraits and flowers.

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One of the most beautiful sculptures of the cemetery.

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These are among the oldest tombs, from the 1600’s. Plain and undecorated in this triangular shape, adopted from Jewish gravestones at the time.

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If you want to know more or visit the cemetery, check out this site.

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Grit in the eye

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Old English cemetery, Livorno.

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Historic Northerners at rest

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Through the help of newfound and kind Livornese friends, I was fortunate to be able to visit the Old English Cemetery. It is the oldest protestant burial ground in Italy, in use between 1645 and 1840. People of many nationalities have their final resting place here, including some from my own country:

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This is the headstone of the Swedish consul Peter Wilhelm Törngren who died in 1800 at the age of 67 years.

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The stone is engraved in Italian on one side and Swedish on the other.

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Peter Wilhelm himself.

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Here lies the sister of Swedish statesman Axel von Fersen, alleged lover of Marie Antoinette. Baroness Hedvig Eleonora died in Pisa. Many of those buried in Livorno had ended their days in other parts of Tuscany and were brought here, since protestant cemeteries were rare at the time.

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A third example of Swedes buried in Livorno’s Old English, colonel Otto Reinhold Möllersverd.

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More to come later from this interesting place…

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Old English

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Remember I said that nice and exciting things would happen in the coming days? Well, here is one of them. A private viewing of the Old English Cemetery which is normally closed. It is the oldest still existing non Catholic cemetery in Italy, it was closed in 1840 when a new one was built. More on this when I come back home, if there are any cemetery lovers among you out there I think you will enjoy this one!

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