Maloja cemetery – grave of Giovanni Segantini

In September 1899, Giovanni Segantini climbed the Schafberg above Pontresina in order to complete his painting “Nature”. Whilst up on the mountain, he suffered an attack of peritonitis. A doctor from St. Moritz, Dr. Oskar Bernhard, was summoned to help, but could not save his patient – and Giovanni Segantini died on 28 September, at the age of 41. On 1 October 1899, he was buried in the small cemetery in Maloja. Segantini had made this cemetery the subject of his painting “The Consolation of Faith” in 1896.

A plaque on the Segantini family tomb carries the inscription “Da presso e da lunge in terra e in cielo uniti in vita e in morte ora e sempre” (“Near and far, on earth and in heaven, united in life and in death, now and always”). Above the graves of Giovanni Segantini and his partner Bice Bugatti stands the inscription “Arte ed amore vincono il tempo” (“Art and love conquer time”). Alongside the graves of Bice and Giovanni lie those of their sons Mario, Gottardo and Alberto Segantini. Their daughter, Bianca, was buried in Arco, the birthplace of Giovanni Segantini, in what is now the Italian province of Trentino.