Graves in the sky
Sarcophagi hung beneath Gothic canopies โ pride refusing earth.
Didier Descouens โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท Maurizio Moro5153 โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท MartinucciG92 โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท MartinucciG92 โ CC BY-SA 4.0
Because they were built to be seen, not entered: the court is a few metres and the canopies rise above eye level anyway โ the fence has been the intended viewpoint since the fourteenth century. Summer entry, when offered, adds only closeness to the carvings.
In Castelvecchio these decades for its safety โ a faithful copy rides the tomb. That enigmatic smile on a funerary knight has puzzled scholars a century: likeliest a "triumphant serenity", as willed by a lord who wished to be remembered laughing.
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In a small fenced court behind Piazza dei Signori rise the Scaliger Tombs: the graves of Verona's lords lifted into the air beneath Gothic marble canopies ascending in pinnacles and statues โ a funerary chorus without parallel in Europe, the della Scala refusing burial beneath the soil and hanging their sarcophagi above their city at a height fitting their title. Grandest is Cansignorio's spire crowned by its gilded-effect knight; nearest the heart, Cangrande I's over the church door itself: the greatest lord recumbent with his equestrian double above, wearing the famous smile โ the original smiling rider kept in Castelvecchio. The iron fence is itself a masterpiece: fourteenth-century mesh repeating the family's ladder emblem without end. The court reads fully from the street โ a ten-minute pause closing the two-squares walk with the medieval age's strangest image of glory.
Sarcophagi hung beneath Gothic canopies โ pride refusing earth.
The smiling lord on horseback above his family church.
Via Arche Scaligere, 37121 Verona