Gezicht op de begraafplaats van Staglieno in Genua c. 1870 - 1900

Alfredo Noack captured the Staglieno Cemetery in Genoa with his camera. This photograph presents a landscape that intertwines the city with its necropolis, reflecting 19th-century Europe's complex relationship with death, memory, and civic identity. The Staglieno Cemetery, conceived as an open-air museum, became a stage for elaborate funerary art, mirroring the social hierarchies of its time. It visually encodes the values and aspirations of Genoa's bourgeoisie. Consider that the photograph's wide perspective is a deliberate choice to show the cemetery's scale and integration into the urban environment, and how this might challenge or reinforce existing social norms around death and public space. Analyzing such images requires an understanding of the social, political, and artistic movements that shaped its creation. Historical archives, municipal records, and collections of photography offer insight into the culture that saw value in monumentalizing death.