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.

The male heirs of the House Savoy have been allowed back into Italy following a 56-year exile, but a small town named after the royal family is fighting to get its old name back.
The town of Salvia (in the southern Italian province of Potenza) was forced to change its name to Savoia di Lucania from after local cook Giovanni Passannante, at the time working in Naples, tried to assassinate King Umberto I in 1878.

As part of reparations for the incident, in which the king was superfically wounded, the town’s name was changed from Salvia (the Italian word for sage, plentiful in the surrounding hills) to one that underlined allegiance to the monarchy.

"The name belongs to us, it is in the souls of the people who live here," mayor Rosa Riccardi told zoomata. "There is no particular link to the Savoy’s coming back to Italy. We just want our name back."

The town of 1,200 residents became news during the media feeding frenzy that came after the Italian parliament made constitutional changes in July to allow the return of the Savoia, as the family is known in Italian. Male heirs of the House of Savoy were banished from Italy in 1948 after collaborating with Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini and fleeing Rome when the regime caved in.

Despite having 124 years to get used to it, locals have always resented the name change — and have continued calling themselves "salviani" in honor of the original name. The pro-salvia committee, formed in 1986, has been busy petitioning to get the name changed and bring home the remains of Passannante.

The brain and skull of the anarchist, tortured until he was eventually sent to an institute for the criminally insane, were formerly on display in the Rome’s Criminology Museum. In a significant victory for the salviani, Justice Minister Oliviero Diliberto decreed in 1999 that Passannante could be buried in his home town. Riccardi said remains of the town’s most controversial former resident will be put in a memorial, once space is made in the city center.

Related resources:
Salute! Food, wine & travel in Southern Italy
More on the unexplored regions of the Bel Paese…

http://digilander.libero.it/lucania0/savoia/indice.htm
Take a look at Savoia di Lucania…