CEMENTERIO DE LOS ILUSTRES

Inaugurated on August 26, 1849, the 35-hectare cemetery is one of the largest in the country, and is the final resting place of wealthy families, political and military figures, writers, former presidents and ordinary citizens. Declared a protected area since 2009, the Cimetière des Illustres has a religious and socio-cultural heritage that is preserved and enhanced more than ever. Take a look at the white marble sculptures, some of them made in Genoa (Italy), and the richly decorated busts of angels, virgins and seraphim. Art Nouveau mausoleums dating from the late ^19th and early ^20th centuries abound in the cemetery.

The remains of emblematic political figures and important Salvadoran writers such as Arturo Ambrogi and poet Alberto Masferrer are buried here.

The tomb of General Francisco Morazán, father of independence in Central America and famous member of the ^19th-century Central American Union, who was shot on September 15, 1842 in San José, Costa Rica, is the very first tomb to be built in the cemetery.

Also on view is the military tomb of Captain General Gerardo Barrios, President of El Salvador, and that of his wife, Adelaida Guzmán de Barrios.

La Novia, the cemetery's finest sculpture in white marble, is a life-size likeness of Lidia Cristales. The young woman died of a hemorrhage. When she was pregnant, she decided to drive three hours in very difficult conditions, far from the capital and therefore from the hospital; she could not be saved by her doctor husband. After his wife's death, he decided to become an obstetrician-gynecologist to help Salvadoran women give birth in good conditions. In memory of his wife, César Emilio López commissioned a Genoese sculptor to create a bust of an angel from a photograph of his late wife. Dazzled by the statue's beauty, he decided to create a love mausoleum with an identical replica of the deceased. At the end of the day, the sculpture is bathed in a special light, which we recommend you see.

The Mayan frescoes on a tomb, the plane of Italian pilot Enrico Massi, a pioneer of aviation in El Salvador who died in 1923, and the sculpture of the "motorcycle" on which its owner J. Francisco Sandoval died in 1948 arealso among the most original mausoleums.