Naples plans ‘rebirth’ for its crumbling Poggioreale cemetery

Burial place has fallen into severe disrepair, to dismay of families of those laid to rest there

Wild vegetation smothers the crumbling tombs, most of them dating back to the 1800s, that line the square beneath the imposing Chiesa Madre, or Mother Church, at Poggioreale monumental cemetery in the southern Italian city of Naples.

In the middle of the square, a makeshift storage area has been installed for coffins containing retrieved skeletal remains of the dead that were flung out of burial niches after a series of collapses at multistorey marble columbariums last year.