Colonel Pacheco's Tomb
A war hero
Another monument with only one buried person, constructed before 1844 in the Lapa Cemetery, was Colonel Pacheco’s. A Siege of Porto hero, deceased in 1833, had been buried in the temporary cemetery and transferred to the new cemetery in 1841, for a monument to be later installed on top of his grave. Here the symbology is also specifically related to the person, with military trophies and the lion, which represents bravery. The broken column is a common symbol within romantic cemeteries, representing that the life of the burried person was cut short or that their death was very sudden and unexpected.
From then on, with many burials of families and notable personalities, the social acceptance of the Lapa Cemetery ceased to be a problem. On the contrary, it will have motivated more people to become confreres. In fact, the Porto City Council had not managed to create a cemetery in Prado do Repouso with the same level as the Lapa one. As it was then the only public cemetery in the city, anyone who lived there and did not belong to a brotherhood that owned a cemetery would necessarily see their dead buried in the Prado do Repouso cemetery, which, at the time, did not yet have any monuments and, in part, was even a farm, where animals roamed freely.
A war hero
Another monument with only one buried person, constructed before 1844 in the Lapa Cemetery, was Colonel Pacheco’s. A Siege of Porto hero, deceased in 1833, had been buried in the temporary cemetery and transferred to the new cemetery in 1841, for a monument to be later installed on top of his grave. Here the symbology is also specifically related to the person, with military trophies and the lion, which represents bravery. The broken column is a common symbol within romantic cemeteries, representing that the life of the burried person was cut short or that their death was very sudden and unexpected.
From then on, with many burials of families and notable personalities, the social acceptance of the Lapa Cemetery ceased to be a problem. On the contrary, it will have motivated more people to become confreres. In fact, the Porto City Council had not managed to create a cemetery in Prado do Repouso with the same level as the Lapa one. As it was then the only public cemetery in the city, anyone who lived there and did not belong to a brotherhood that owned a cemetery would necessarily see their dead buried in the Prado do Repouso cemetery, which, at the time, did not yet have any monuments and, in part, was even a farm, where animals roamed freely.
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