(Milano, Cimitero Monumentale. Fedele Sala’s funeral monument)
By Paola Redemagni
(Dear friends speaking english, this is an home-made blog. I have no money to pay a professional translator, so I write english post by myself and – as you can see – I can’t write English language very well. So you can find a lot of mistake in the articoles: I beg your pardon. My English language level is: F(unny)! Will you pardon me?)
If you walk down the main street of the Cimitero Monumentale in Milano, you arrive at the Cinerary Temple. Let’s enter and turn on your right, in a small hall where you can see the Fedele Sala’s tomb, one of the most curious monument in this cemetery because it’s a masonic monument.
Mr. Fedele Sala was a very rich merchant and landowner with many properties in Italy and South America. When he died on 1th March 1883 he was 47 and he left a lot of money to the Cremation Society in Milan (SOCREM) in his will: he wished to be cremated and he wished a tomb in the Cinerary Temple.
The sculpture of Mr. Sala is very realistic. He is standing on an high base, in a recess.
The monument stands in the middle of a temple, representing the Masonic Temple, one of the most important symbols in Masonry. It resembles the Temple built in Jerusalem by order of King Solomon which in Jewish symbolism is considered the idealized image of the Earth. But it represents the Temple of knowledge too that every Mason must build within himself, rising towards a higher spiritual sphere.
The side columns represent those erected by architect Hiram Abif in the Temple of Jerusalem. Hiram Abif called Jachin the right column and Boaz the left column. Beyond the multiple meanings (male and female, Sun and Moon, water and fire …) they delimit the sacred space from the profane one and indicate the door to access the sacred place.
Today, according to the prevailing model in Italy, Boaz is the column of the Apprentices. It presents a Doric capital and it is surmounted by a globe, symbol of the universality of Freemasonry. Its name can be translated as “Strength, Firmness” and can bear the letter B on the stem.
(Initiation of an apprentice Freemanson. Around 1800. Engraving based on that of Gabanon of 1745, with the same subject. Unknown author. Http://de. wikipedia.org/wiki/build: Freimaurer Initiation. Public domain by Wikipedia Commons)
Jachin is the column of the Companions, it presents a Jonic capital surmounted by three pomegranates, representing the Masonic family whose members – like the beans – are united by brotherhood. Its name can be translated as “Stability” and can carry the letter J on the stem.In the Sala’s monuments the two columns look more sober.On the columns you can see two bronze floral crowns, a caduceus and a winged wheel. Bronze is a traditional material in funeral decoration but in the Masonic tradition, bronze indicates that the principles of Freemasonry are immortal, because it resists all weather. The winged wheel is a traditional representation of time running away but I cannot exclude that it has other meanings for the Masons. It is more difficult to attribute meaning to the right caduceus, the winged stick around which two snakes twist, an attribute of the Greek god Hermes and the Roman Mercury. Usually it represents medicine but in this case it does not allude to the profession of Fedele Sala, since Sala was a merchant and landowner. The caduceus is present in many of the most ancient civilizations and it is an attribute of Ermete Trismegisto, mythical ancestor of magical art intended as a synthesis of universal knowledge in all its applications: medicine, philosophy, religion, natural sciences, mathematics … It symbolizes the primacy of intelligence over of dominating substance and the two reptiles can represent the polarity of good and evil. The caduceus indicates the ability to reconcile opposites, creating harmony between different elements, and to dominate chaos.
Storie di cimiteri 