San Carlos Cemetery . Located in the city of Matanzas , Cuba , it was inaugurated on September 2 , 1872 . Necropolis in which the remains of notable figures of Cuban culture are found, such as Bonifacio Byrne and José Jacinto Milanés . The portico has a rectangular structure and a monumental character with a classical formal language. You can find works of blacksmithing that contain great artistic value and magnificent funerary constructions. This is one of the most representative places of the culture of Matanzas, through which a large part of the history of the Athens of Cuba can be known .
Summary
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- 1 History
- 2Estructura
- 3 Heroes of yesterday
- 4 Curiosities
- 5 Sources
History
cemetery chapel
Founded in 1693 , Matanzas did not have its first church until two years later. It was built in a very rudimentary way, so the burials were carried out in the surrounding land. This primitive church, which was located in front of the current Cathedral, towards the corner of Jovellanos and Milanés, was collapsed in 1730 , as a result of a fierce hurricane that hit the city on October 19 of that year.
It is not until 1735 that the current parish is spoken of, which is definitively concluded in the middle of the 19th century . The church that was completed in 1751 was only an elementary plant, so the atriums were very small. In those atriums the burials took place from then on. Although this cemetery appears to have seen little use, its limits exceeded the temple.
On January 28, 1872 , a few months before the inauguration of the cemetery, the law that established the obligation to give decent burial to people who were not Catholic was made public. The permission to build a cemetery for non-Catholic people was expressly issued by the law of April 29, 1855 , according to which, in all towns, it would be allowed to build cemeteries for the use of those who did not profess the doctrine of the Roman Apostolic Church . .
Structure
The cemetery was inaugurated on September 2 , 1872 . It has an approximate general area of 135,000 m 2 . The funerary works occupy an area of 116,754 m 2 . Its main master builder was Francisco Sosa Vélez. The portico has a monumental rectangular structure, with a classic formal language, filtered by the grandiloquence that eclecticism imprinted on the predominant neoclassical style in the 19th century . The bars and gates show the scope of the forge and foundry work in Matanzas.
The main materials used in funerary constructions —mausoleums, pantheons, vaults— were marble , granite, baked clay and enameled slabs. The ironwork, the statuary, the commemorative architecture and sculpture, and the poetic or satirical epitaphs endow the necropolis with high artistic and historical values.
heroes of yesterday
In the San Carlos Cemetery are the remains of relevant personalities of Cuban culture, such as Miguel Failde , José Jacinto Milanés , Bonifacio Byrne , Juan Guiteras Gener , Armando Carnot , Arturo Echemendía , Claudio Dumas .
Pantheon of Heroes
There are also the remains of the mambises independence fighters, General Clemente Gómez and Antonio López Coloma , as well as the revolutionary leaders who fell in the struggles against the neocolonial governments, Julio Ruffín , Juan Ripoll , Julián Alemán , René Fraga Moreno , Franklin Gomez and Miguel Sandaran .
Curiosities
The bells obey a system of signals to communicate with the employees:
1- When a burial arrives, the large bell rings 4 times to indicate that the corpse is an adult and will be buried in a vault.
2- If it goes to land, only a big bell will sound, this warns the gravedigger of the instruments that he must carry.
3- If it is a minor, in addition to the 4 big bells, one is added with the girl and if it is for land, 2 bells, one with the big one and the other with the girl.
On one of the tombs the following epitaph can be read: “God above all things. Never say that I was good; always continue to sound the leather. Others with more; they did less.” Robert Andux, 1915 .
With the Triumph of the Revolution , the cemetery passed into the hands of the people and all services are free from January 23, 1962 , when Law 998 came into force.
