Protestant Cemetery

Rome may be home to the Vatican, but not everyone who lives - or dies - there is Catholic. In fact, with the many English travelers coming through Rome on the Grand Tour, followed by the many writers and artists who moved to Rome over the years, a cemetery for non-Catholics was required.

The first burial in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome was in 1738. It’s also commonly called the Cemetery of the English (Cimitero degli Inglesi), although the official name is now “Non-Catholic Cemetery,” with graves for anyone who isn’t Catholic - not just Protestants or the English.

Of course, the moniker “Cemetery of the English” is understandable, given some of the graves located here. The most famous are John Keats (1821) and Percy Bysshe Shelley (1822). Other notable graves include American poet Gregory Corso, Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci, and sons of both Goethe and of Percy and Mary Shelley.

The so-called Protestant Cemetery is located near the Porta San Paolo and Pyramid of Cestius in the southern part of central Rome.