Monument for Comm. Virginio Vita (1849-1933), field 5 garden 36, Shemà Israel Adonai Eloenu Adonai Ehad (Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God, the Lord is one)
Monument n. 61 for Johanan Besso (1883-1929), field 5 garden 71-72
Monument n. 15 for the De Benedetti family, field 2 garden 102-103
Giobbe 12, 10: In His hand is the soul of every living thing and the breath of all mankind
The funeral inscriptions on the tombstones are particularly interesting. There is no halakhic rule (a religious norm codified in the body of the Scriptures, including the Bible and subsequent Talmudic and rabbinic laws, as well as traditions and customs) that dictates what can or cannot be written on tombstones, although they should generally follow a principle of sobriety. Indeed, in the Monumental Cemetery, there are some tombs that only contain the name of the deceased and their presumed birth and death dates, along with the ubiquitous Menorah (the seven-branched candelabrum that was lit in the Jerusalem Temple, symbolizing the seven days of creation or the burning bush in which God appeared to Moses) or the six-pointed Star of David.
Many gravestones display the traditional acronym formed by the Hebrew letters tav, nun, tzade, bet, and he (ת נ צ ב ה), which stands for t’hay nafsho/ah tzrurah b’tzror hachaim (תְּהֵא נַפְשׁוֹ/נַפְשָׁהּ צְרוּרָה בִּצְרוֹר הַחַיִּים), a verse from the Book of Samuel: “May his soul be bound up in the bundle of life.” These words paraphrase the words Abigail said to King David (1 Samuel 25:29). It is important to note that this is a custom, not an obligation.
Other tombs feature the name and surname of the deceased in Hebrew, along with their birth and death dates according to the Jewish calendar. The Jewish calendar is lunisolar, calculated both on a solar and lunar basis. The year consists of 12 or 13 months in a leap year, with each month made up of 29 or 30 days. The count of years begins from the presumed date of the creation of the universe, which, according to the Bible, has been calculated by rabbinic tradition to be 3760 BCE.
There are also tombs with biblical quotations in Hebrew or Italian, or both languages. The most common is the Shema Israel (Hear, O Israel), which appears on many tombs, as well as the Ten Commandments or some Psalms from Samuel (“Those who loved each other so much in life were not even divided in death”) or from Ecclesiastes (“One generation goes, another comes, and dust returns to the earth as it was before, and the spirit returns to the world to govern, and Israel shall obtain its redemption”) found on the tomb of the Jarach family, or from Isaiah 64:7 (“We are the clay, and the works of Your hands we all are, for He knows our instinct and remembers that we are dust”) inscribed on the De Benedetti tomb. In some cases, particularly for male deceased, there is a description of the virtues of the deceased, their most prominent works, the circumstances of their death, or the grief of their family members.
However, perhaps the most significant epitaph, because it summarizes the spirit of an important section of Jews of the time, is the one on the tomb of Prospero Moisè Loria, a financier and founder of the “Umanitaria” (a charitable organization), who wanted to sum up his rationalist philosophy on his tomb, writing: “Ashes of P. M. Loria, requested autopsy and cremation, a useful custom, 1814-1892.” These two practices were not exactly in line with Jewish orthodoxy.
Aedicule n. 9 Segre, field 2 n. 14
Monument for Eugenio Mortara (1848-1934), field 6 garden 35-37
Monument for the Bresner family, extension garden 20
Monument for Comm. Moisè Jarach (1846-1922), field 4 garden 52-54
