In Love with France, At Home In Italy

How to know if you are dead? If your name is posted here, things do not look good for you.  Instead of the obituaries that appear in American newspapers, in our Italian neighborhood, the name of the deceased is noted on posters like these. But it's unusual to see, on the same billboard, a notice about upcoming Festas or Zumba lessons.  While visiting the lovely city of Amelia, I was surprised to see this juxtaposition of death and Zumba fitness lessons early in the afternoon. But when I passed by after lunch, the colorful festival poster had been replaced by another notice that was not related to the funerals of those who had passed on.  Although many of us think of death as being rather final, I had heard that burial in Italian cemeteries might be anything but permanent. Apparently buried coffins are stacked, and after a pileup of ten or so, you reach another expiration date and it's your ...

I'm almost finished with Tim Parks' "Italian Neighbors or A Lapsed Anglo-Saxon in Verona," which describes, among other fascinating things, the way things work in Italian cemeteries. "After 30 years, a coffin can, if more space is required, be lifted up, the bones removed, and a new coffin with a fresh corpse introduced in its place."  There are even more disturbing details about how people are typically buried on top of each other in trenches. "When all the coffins have been down there for ten years or more, they are then dug up together and the bones removed, and the space is once again available for the freshly dead."  Rest in peace? Not so much!  I guess I had these morbid thoughts on the brain because a favorite aunt just died last week, and yesterday we stopped to look at the local cemetery, which has a beautiful view of the city. We did notice the mixture of very old graves amid the new, so having just read about the Italian modus ope...