(ANSA) - As millions of Italians marked All Souls Day on Wednesday, a new initiative emerged which could make the customary November 2 trips to the cemetery a thing of the past.
A Rome university professor and three assistants have set up a website through which Italians can keep the memory of dead relatives alive for posterity.
The site is set up to host 'memory boxes' for the dead. Relatives can post on it the letters of their lost loved ones, other documents and even videos or any internet- friendly record of the person in question.
"It's a way of ensuring more people have a memory of the lives of the departed," explained Prof. Marcelo Lucchetti, the project supervisor.
"Above all it's a way for those who have died to speak to the younger members of the family," he added. The site already has its first 'guests', a former Italian army officer and his wife who are buried in Rome's Prima Porta cemetery.
Anyone who sees their grave will also spot the reference to the website, where they can find out more about the couple's lives. In fact web surfers can read the army officer's account of his nine years in Africa at the head of a platoon of Arab soldiers. There are also notes written by friends describing his wife's work as a seamstress and her character.
"At first we just wanted to give visibility to those literary or cultural texts that often emerge after a person dies," said Lucchetti.
"But then we thought we would also provide space for people who, for example, spent their lives cooking, or doing any other things too. Because every person is a story."
The website, which has only recently started up, should allow internet-savvy Italians to spend time remembering their dead loved ones from the comfort of their home.
In Catholic Italy, All Souls Day is an important occasion for many families. The custom is for people to visit their deceased relatives in cemeteries, often leaving flowers on their graves.
Now, they will simply have to sift through the photos, writings and other material collected on the internet as a sort of cyber memorial.
You can visit the website at www.immortalia-immortalya.it
