Conservation issues of a monumental cemetery

A monumental cemetery almost always has outdoor sculptures like a sculpture park, so similar are the conservation issues. Many of European Monumental Cemeteries are evidences of the Golden Age of the funerary sculpture in XIX – early XX sec. The monumental cemetery ‘Foce’ in Sanremo, Ligury was central in a study carried out by the author since January 2013. The site is located in the western part of Sanremo, near the shore, and it was founded in 1838. Now it counts over 2000 tombs, many of them date back to Sanremo’s Belle Epoque (1880-1915), period in which the city became an important international tourist destination. At least one third of the graves is of foreigners, and the site is noticeable for its organization in which there isn’t no strong and evident separation’s marks between buried of different religions and nationalities. Unfortunately, the site is now in a state of strong decay. In Sanremo there is a fine local production with sculptors required not only nearby and some works of national and international sculptors such as Jules Pierre Van Biesbroeck, Firmin Michelet, Wolf Von Hoyer, Pietro Canonica, Alberto Giacomasso, Alfeo Bedeschi and so on. Almost all of them have made funerary and commemorative artifacts around Europe and sometimes the world. Graves are made of different materials, both metallic and stone. They have been mapped in order to locate all the elements for successive inspections and future conservation plans. Other serious problems are the infesting plants (and a widespread presence of Cupressus’s Canker), the lack of heirs and the absence of a plan about weed control and conservation. Regarding the decay there some alteration phenomena are more diffuse. Moreover it is undisputed that the coastal environments has a strong impact on cultural heritage because it has a different composition of atmosphere (very rich in salts) which caused different rates of degradation phenomena. Metal artifacts are more damaged by a salty atmosphere rich in chlorides because they favor the creation of an electrolyte layer and so surfaces are often wet while stone artifacts generally present more erosion and similar decay phenomena Even for the major restoration sustainable solutions are possible and with the goal of never reach any more a critical situation such as the current, a maintenance program is scheduled. Operations (and inspections) should be divided depending on the difficulty among different professionalisms: dealer, caretaker or gardener, skilled worker, restorer, specialized technician. Very simple operations could be entrusted to the dealers or to the caretakers briefly trained with the intention of making them collaborators in the conservation of a site of great historical and artistic value that is part of the town's history. Finally, a sustainable management and valorization considering the cemetery characteristics is possible with solutions that will have a minimal economic and environmental impact.