Photo collection

Verdi's Funeral

After Verdi died, in his room in the Hotel de Milan on 27 January 1901, he was buried on 30 January in a temporary tomb at the Cimitero Monumentale. The crypt at the Rest Home was prepared in a few days, and on 27 February, one month after his death, the solemn transport of his body from the Monumentale to Piazzale Michelangelo Buonarroti took place, with an imposing cortège that crossed the city.

Dr. Leone Soldati, a young doctor from Italian Switzerland who lived at No. 41 Via Buonarroti, attended and participated first-hand in the great event. The previous day, in Piazza San Pietro in Sala, at the beginning of Via Marghera, a dais had been built (one of about a hundred that had sprouted up along the six-kilometer route from the Monumentale to the Rest Home in Piazza Buonarroti), and Dr. Soldati had decided that from there he would have the best view for photographing the cortège.

He then went to the Cimitero Monumentale, where preparations were feverishly being made, and troops were already spread out in Via Ceresio. In the afternoon he placed himself at his vantage point, from which he took some twenty photos.