John Keats “came to Rome in September 1820 suffering seriously from tuberculosis and died only four months later at the age of 26”1, at the beginning of 1821.
“During the winter of 1821 Keats, in his flat in 26 Piazza di Spagna - now the Keats-Shelley Museum - realized that his life was drawing to a close, and asked his friend Severn to go and look at the place where he would be interred. When Severn returned and told him that white and blue violets, daisies and anemones grew wild on the graves, Keats rejoiced and said that he ‘already felt the flowers growing over him’”2.
Keats was buried in the parte antica of town’s Protestant Cemetery (Via Caio Cestio, 6) in a tomb not bearing his name but the following English inscription: “This Grave / contains all that was Mortal / of a / YOUNG ENGLISH POET / Who / on his Death Bed, in the Bitterness of his Heart, / at the Malicious Power of his Enemies, / Desired / these Words to be engraven on his / Tomb Stone: / Here lies One / Whose Name was writ in Water / Feb 24th 1821”.
Sixty-one years later Keats’ devoted friend Joseph Severn - who took care of the poet until his death - was buried by the side of his friend.
Nearby, on the Cemetery boundary wall a John Keats memorial tablet can be seen.
Just behind Keats tomb, can be visited the one of celebrated Scottish anatomist and surgeon John Bell.
The tomb in 2023
The tomb in 2019
The tomb in 2008
- Photo 1 by Chiara Bonomo (November 2023); photo 2 by Giovanna Failla (February 2019); photos 3-4-5 by Luca Borghi ti.supmacinu|ihgrob.l#| (August 2008)
- Locate the item on this Google Map