An iron fence rails off the external square from the internal one, closed in by the building which flow into one another to the centre of the building built as a sepuchral shrine. In this cemetery are buried the remains of illustrious citizens, when they are not actually buried here, they are remembered with medallions, busts and tombstones.
The monumental construction is 51 meters high with a wide staircase leading up to the shrine itself. The main body is attached to the wings by- galleries on the ground floor, these contain burial niches, and loggias on the upper floor where the actual tombs are found. On the front of the entrance to the shrine can be seen the bronze statue of Glory, work of the sculptor Lodovico Pogliaghi, who is also responsible for the mosaic work on the doors.
In the centre of he shrine can be seen he tomb of Alessandro Manzoni, this is placed on a base in altorilievo. work of Giannino Castiglioni. The monumental Cemetery and its buildings, in Lombardic style, is the work of the architect Carlo Maciachini, the details are freely developed with bizantinc forms.
The enclosure, in living rock, is scattered with small chapels erected by private people on free-style designs. The Cemetery is full of monuments and valuable works done by the best architects and sculptors of the time.
Among the most note-worthy of the minie-teenth and twentieth centuries we can name: Butti, Lodovico Pogliaghi, Leonardo Bisolfi, Vincenzo Vela, Alfeo Bedeschi, Messina, Manzu, Giannino Castiglioni; Adolfo Wildt is present with his long-bodied figures representing men immersed in the sleep of death with such impressive sculptural anatomy. On one side of the entrance there is a Jewish cemetery and a non-catholic one.
At the end of the main avenue there is the crematorium built in 1875 with the monei left by the nromoter of cremation, Alberto Keller.
