One of Italy’s largest cemeteries has installed computer information points to help relatives locate beloved ones. The initiative, unveiled in Milan last week, will be put to the test when Italians traditionally pay their respects on All Saints and All Soul’s days, Nov.1- 2.
Milan’s main cemetery is, in fact, a city within a city: a kilometer long and almost as wide, it houses the remains of 550,00 thousand people. The tangle of monuments and tombstones in the cemetery inaugurated in 1885 meant that lines at the information window kept people waiting at least 20 minutes.
The Maggiore cemetery now has four information booths which allow visitors to look up names on a data base and print out a map as well as other information about the place of burial.
"It’s a real revolution," said head of the city’s funeral services Giulio Gallera. "Up until now the defunct were kept in endless lists, it was difficult to trace any kind of information."
The city government has more prosaic reasons for updating the system, like keeping tabs on leases. Due to the confusing state of paper archives, officials didn’t know when time was up for the niches (30-year leases) or family tombs (90-year leases) — estimates for loss of income to the cemetery are about 750,000 euro. An information booth was also installed at the Greco cemetery, plans are to extend the computerized system to the city’s other five cemeteries, cataloguing some 471,000 total remains.
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