18th-century tombstones of British 'Ministers Resident' in Venice

Elizeus Burges, 1719-1722 and 1727-1736
John Murray 1754-1765
Sir Francis Vincent Bt, 1789-91

About the project

The Protestant Cemetery of Venice was originally established on the Lido in 1685 and this was where Anglicans who died in Venice were buried, before Napoleon directed that all burials should be centred on the island of San Cristoforo (now incorporated into San Michele). 

When the Lido Airport, originally laid out in the 1920s, was extended in the 1970s, the tombstones of a number of prominent figures were moved to the Catholic cemetery on the Lido.

At the instigation of residents of the Lido, Venice in Peril, together with other international committees and UNESCO, funded the conservation, consolidation and installation of the tombstones, which give a sense of the diplomatic representation of different Protestant nationalities to the Venetian Republic, in its last century. 

The tombstone of the most famous British Minister Resident, Sir Joseph Smith, is not in the Lido cemetery, although he and his wife, the opera singer Catherine Tofts, were both buried in Venice. His stone, shown here (below right), can be seen in the Anglican church of St George in Venice.

Project location

In brief

COMPLETED
  • Project undertaken in 1994-5
  • For more on the history of the Protestant community in Venice and the Protestant Cemetery or ‘Reparto Evangelico’ on the Island of San Michele, where many famous figures were buried from 1895 onwards, click here.
  • For Venice in Peril’s involvement in the campaign to care for the ‘Reparto Evangelico’  at the Protestant Cemetery on the Island of San Michele where many more of those who made Venice their home, are buried, click here.
  • Venice in Peril Fund also contributed, in 1998-2000, to a project of conservation in the Jewish Cemetery on the Lido in xx,

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