Some Special People

The Cimitero Acattolico or Non-Catholic Cemetery in Rome is the last resting-place of more than four thousand people including the Poets John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley for whom the cemetery is best-known, although Italians are inclined to think of it as the place where Antonio Gramsci, the founder of Italian Communism, is interred. But there are so many great people lying there. Poets, authors, painters, sculptors, actors, directors, singers, dancers, engineers, architects, soldiers, sailors, airmen, fighters from the Italian Risorgimento, doctors, lawyers, journalists, teachers, professors, clergymen, scientists, diplomats, spies, politicians including a couple of prime ministers from the Balkans, industrialists, business leaders, all degrees of nobility including a number of princes and princesses and one queen. And there are so many more. This book is an attempt to describe the lives of about six hundred of these. Some biographical sketches are quite detailed while others are, well, sketches. Some lived adventurous lives and others made major contributions to society in science and medicine. Mystery surrounds the lives of some of these Special People and others had the glamour of stage and screen. Some of the writers achieved world-wide fame while others were more obscure. They are all Special People and their stories are equally special.