Old English Cemetery

The Old English Cemetery is a cemetery in Livorno , central Italy, located on a plot of land near the Via Verdi, close to the Waldensian Church and to the formerly Anglican church of St. George. It is the oldest Protestant cemetery in Italy.

In the late 16th century, the English Levant Company, trading with the Ottoman Empire, established a significant commercial presence in the city they knew as Leghorn. Soon the English community, which was predominately Anglican, needed a burial place for its dead. Some historians argue that the cemetery was founded before 1609, although the oldest graves are dated around the 1640s. Some sources say that in 1594 the burial ground was opened by authorization of the Grand Duke Ferdinando I, who had recently completed a commercial agreement with Queen Elizabeth I. The cemetery was erected outside the city walls, in an area called "Fondo Magno". For a long time it was the only English and Protestant cemetery in Italy and probably in the entire Mediterranean area.

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