Today’s aspect of the Cemetery of the Misericordia is fruit of successive modifications made in the first thirty years of our century, of which memories remain, above all, of the numerous projects and drawings preserved in the Archives of the Confraternity, thanks to the engineers Niccolò Niccolai and Severino Crott and to the architect Ugo Giusti. From this documentation one deduces that the place was meant to assume the aspect of a real monumental cemetery, while the realizations, however, were always limited to interventions of amplification and rearrangement of the burial areas. The Major Chapel, dating back to the first structure, 1894, is stripped, whilst the sides, opened in 1916 and dedicated to St. James and St. Tito, were demolished to make room for new burial niches and preserve only the frames of the antique entrance arches. In this area a series of gravestones are decorated by small paving stones in natural stone, resting on dark green ceramic panels. In the left ex-chapel, the sepulchre of Pio Chini is evidenced by a beautiful garland in stone and decorated by small profiles in polychromatic ceramics. The work of the Furnaces is also witnessed by the two large chapels facing each other dedicated to St. Cross and to the Fallen and also in the particular chapels spaced at regular intervals along the boundary wall in 1929 and belonging to middle-class families who still detain the patronage ( Borelli, Toccafondi, Monti, Maestrini ). The external decoration, the ceramic finishing of the frames, the friezes, the frontons, the furnishings, the large windows, the tiles and the small pillars were, in fact, produced by middle-class manufacturing, under the artistic direction of Tito Chini, who probably made use of the collaboration of his uncle Pietro Chini for the pictorial decorations. The design is predominantly geometric and often concentrates on the strong contrasts of colour.
Itinerario Liberty - Planning and Realization - Stefano Pelosi - www.stefanopelosi.it
