Designed by Pritzker laureate Aldo Rossi in the late 20th century, this cemetery echoes his famed San Cataldo project. Both embody Rossi’s “city of the dead” concept, employing symmetry and 1:1 replication of adjacent historic cemeteries to preserve urban memory through spatial continuity.

Yet where San Cataldo feels monumental, Ponte Sesto exudes village intimacy: simple grave markers replace grandiose chapels, cypresses bask in sunlight, and visiting hours—capriciously limited to brief morning/afternoon slots—hint at local idiosyncrasy.

Rossi’s debt to surrealist Giorgio de Chirico materialises here: cerulean-green skies cast elongated shadows, dissolving summer light into brickwork. Time etches itself onto empty pathways; sepia portraits on niches suggest an eternal, silent city.

Captured last summer, my lingering memory isn’t architecture but mosquitoes—London’s polite climate had erased recollection of such ferocity. Shorts proved fatal; retreat came swiftly, limbs polka-dotted. Spring visitors, perhaps, fare better.