Burgstaller-Bidischini Tomb

The concession to the noble Burgstaller-Bidischini family of the space of the monumental arches in order to erect a class I tomb in memory of their family dates back to 10 March 1860 (AcegasAPSamga Archives).
La tomba presenta, dinanzi a un’imponente stele piramidale, un sarcofago, verso il quale incede, salendo tre gradini con passo lento e mesto, una figura angelica dalle chiome fluenti, vestita con una lunga tunica che allunga la mano pietosa ad appoggiare sulla tomba una ghirlanda di fiori.
When Vincenzo de Drago wrote Passeggiata alle tombe in 1870 he recalls how the chapel lacked “monument and tombstones”, suggesting that the sepulchral monument had not yet been commissioned.
It was only thanks to recent restoration, which also restored splendour to the wrought-iron gate and torches, that the signature of the sculptor Giovanni Marin (G. Marin) emerged, engraved on the marble base. Marin was a sculptor who was very active in Trieste, also in the funerary sphere thanks to his collaborations with his uncle Luigi Conti, who probably introduced him to the production of cemetery monuments as early as the end of the 19th century.
The tomb, probably created in the first decade of the new century, reveals affinities with the symbolist production of Leonardo Bistolfi, expressed in the ethereal purity of the angel's forms and in the care taken in depicting the details of the drapery of the tunic, the flowers, the footwear and the feathers of the very long, almost cumbersome, wings.