Article: On the way to heaven - reflections around death and a funerary monument from the Cemeteries of Pleasures

As we cross the main access, we enter an imposing, dignified, sacred, poetic, elegiac, romantic space of great respectability, where remarkable memories are evoked, powerful feelings, which we can find materialized in the white stone of its Monuments, in the constant epigraphic inscriptions that we come across, in the most diverse symbols, in its expressive statues, existing amidst an egregious atmosphere, perfumed by the soft aroma of cypresses (which appear to us with great evocative flames, pointing to the immensity of the blue of the sky) and softened by the singing of various birds, such as beautiful blackbirds, which can also be appreciated in this authentic open-air museum, in this surprising, passionate and fantastic place that is the, rich in heritage, Cemitério dos Prazeres, the old 19th-century necropolis in the western part of Lisbon.
Text by ARTUR JORGE VIEIRA DE JESUS
Graduate in History and Higher Technician in Local Administration

Source: Cidade Solidária Magazine n.º 27/28
Edition: SCML, 2016