Faccanoni Mausoleum

The Faccanoni mausoleum is a grand and monumental tomb that the Faccanoni family
constructed in 1907 within the cemetery walls of Sarnico. Built next to the hill, it was
constructed using only local materials: Sarizzo from Val Seriana for the baseboards, Ceppo di
Brembate for the body of the work, Sarnico stone for the flights of steps, Wrought iron and
bronze for the entrance gate to the crypt. The mausoleum was designed to be a spectacular
backdrop for the entire cemetery. This was thanks to a combination of theatrical effects and
materials with varying luministic yields. Christian religious symbols, normally inserted into
this type of construction, are virtually nonexistent. The cross disappears in a triumph of putti
and only at the crypt entrance does the visitor notice it. The Faccanoni family mausoleum is
one of five architectural works in Art Nouveau style in the town of Sarnico.

I would like to begin by talking about mausoleums in general. In Sommarughi's production,

the theme of funeral construction emerges, which is closely connected to the theme of villa or
building typology. Since dedicating oneself to funeral construction was, among Milanese
professionals of the time, a widespread practice, it is not unusual that Sommaruga engaged in
it. It is further proof of his inclusion in the profession he belongs to. In his production, the
series of projects and realizations for tombs, funeral aedicules, mausoleums and cemeteries
constitutes a dense sequence that joins the equally dense sequence of villas and cottages
(from 1896 to 1917). The Faccanonis are therefore entrusted to the same architect, who
created the scenographies that form the backdrop to the private rites of their earthly daily life
and to the public symbols of their social status, the tasks to perpetuate, in a tangible and
lasting way, their fleeting mortal glories. In this funerary construction, Sommaruga is also not
exempt from a heaviness of forms common to practically all contemporary Italian and foreign
cemeteries.

But what we can define as the widespread "tendency towards the mausoleum" found in
Sommaruga is a less redundant interpretation and more sensitive to luministic, chromatic and
environmental values linked to the different quality and contrast of the materials used as well
as to the relationship of the work with the surrounding landscape. The distribution of
mausoleums and funeral aedicules in the space inside the cemetery fence does not happen by
chance, but according to precise plans, almost micro-urban planning. These envisaged an
intervention in the available areas not dissimilar in logic to those which, precisely in those
years, were carried out on the land parcels of the expanding city. It occurs that the tombs
replace the villas of a hypothetical garden city or a middle-upper-class residential district.
The geographical condition of the land is almost always exploited for scenic purposes. This is
so that through the use of stairways, terraces, clearings, caves, belvederi. It is possible to
create picturesque paths in all similar to the "promenades" of tourist-spa resorts. Only the
type of vegetation is, for reasons of decorum, kept within limits that are less blatantly
luxurious. This is more in keeping with the recollection place. The villa was replaced by a
newsstand or a mausoleum. While domestic privacy was defended by gardens and boundary
walls, public exhibitions were left to the individual or family group. The dead cities are
therefore modeled on those living. If more often than not the cemeteries constitute the
stenographic background against which the funeral aedicules or mausoleums are arranged in
a picturesque sequence. However, sometimes it is the latter that impose themselves, due to
their strong presence. It happens that from a contained object it itself becomes, especially in
small cemeteries (such as in Sarnico), a container, or at least it subordinates the surrounding
space to itself. The term "mausoleum" derives from the name of the funeral monument of
Mausoleum, who had a gigantic tomb built in Halicarnassus which was later included among
the seven wonders of the world in the 4th century BC. According to a reconstruction, the
Mausoleum had a square plan and consisted of a high base that held up a seven-meter-high
pyramid of 24 steps. In the history of funerary architecture in Italian modernism it can be
argued that some of its best-known exponents participated in design appointments. The
competition instrument had found, albeit with the limits indicated in the text, a widespread
application not excluding, in fact, as areas of competition, cemetery buildings. There is a
distinction between cemetery and funerary architecture: the first term refers to the cemetery
itself and the second to what is contained therein (chapels, tombs) and tends to underline the
profound difference between the different social qualities of the client, public and
anonymous, which preside over its creation and the different symbolic attributes that each of
these attributes to the works in question. The simultaneous presence of a public and private
component will therefore constitute the main feature of cemetery architecture. The
progressive prevalence of one of the two components, the personal touch, will lead, during
the 1900s, to an ever increased personalization of the funeral monument. This will be done
according to a logic of ostentatious display and a more or less magniloquent search for
permanence. As a result, the "private" had found his way to display his pride in the most
secure way.

By contrast, the cemetery building served as a backdrop for the ceremony, a picturesque stage
where this secular and positivist ritual could take place. In this way, so to speak, a
competition-integration was established between the two components with the concept of
"monumental" as their common denominator, and it is precisely with this perspective that the
cemeteries will have to exist, changing from private compositional schemes and symbolic
repertoires. The Liberty cemeteries highlight this dialectical relationship and fit coherently in
the wake of eclectic architecture. In any case, they are numerically limited and their history
often includes late realizations, modified projects, and missed opportunities. The Faccanoni
mausoleum is a grandiose monumental tomb built by the family in 1907. This "tendency
towards the mausoleum" in the Art Nouveau style of Giuseppe Sommaruga, already
emerging in the Biffi tomb in Galliano, latent in the Casnati and re-emerging, at the end of
his curriculum, in the mausoleum of Salmoiraghi in Lanzo d'Intelvi, finds its most complete
formalization in Sarnico.

Prior to the construction of the mausoleum, the Sarnico cemetery was modest, square in
shape, surrounded by a wall. It was equipped with a small church and a mortuary. It was the
intention of the Faccanoni to give the local cemetery, on the occasion of the construction of
their mausoleum, a more dignified aspect, especially as regards the background; for this they
proposed to the authorities to demolish the small church and the mortuary, offering to build a
mausoleum which, in addition to the tombs for their families, contained a new church, a
chapel and a mortuary more suitable for the current arrangement. For this purpose they also
offered land adjacent to the cemetery on which to erect the existing building. This was to
expand the cemetery and create an area dedicated to children's burial.

Thus arose the newly constructed construction, which the architect built in grandiose and
massive forms. This was so as not to get lost in the background formed by the stone quarries
dug in the mountains. Behind the mausoleum was planted a massive row of large trees that
made the building outline even clearer. The mausoleum added to the area of the primitive
cemetery is accessed via a large staircase that leads to the funerary shrine where, at the time
of construction, a crypt capable of 34 columbaria and a special monument for the client's
family were located; above the crypt there is a small chapel for religious functions accessible
via two lateral stairways. The entire mausoleum is connected to the old cemetery by means of
low buildings arranged in an exedra: on the left a chapel for the clergy, on the right the
renovated mortuary. The clients later sold some columbaria to the local administration for
burials.
The mausoleum is built almost entirely with materials taken on site: the plinth is in serizzo
from the Val Seriana; the Brembate block monument; the upper floors are in Simona stone
and the steps are in Sarnico stone.
The entrance gate to the crypt is in bronze and wrought iron as are the chandeliers and
interior decorations, designed by Sommaruga himself. The Christ head above the crypt
monument is by Astolfi while the putti on the top are by Ambrogio Pirovano.
In the mausoleum is the tomb of General Alberico Albricci and his wife. They rest in the
upper part more impressive than the lower one, used as the Faccanoni family crypt.