Cementerio de Los Ilustres

The Cementerio de Los Ilustres is located in San Salvador, El Salvador. It is located next to the La Bermeja Cemetery and is part of the General Cemetery of San Salvador.

On August 26, 1849, Bishop Tomás Occeli dedicated the general cemetery as El Salvador's first civil cemetery. The mausoleum of the president of the Federal Republic of Central America, Francisco Morazán, whose remains had been brought from Costa Rica, was already there. After the burial of President Manuel Enrique Araujo in 1913, the area's name was changed to "Pantheon of Los Grandes Hombres," but it eventually became known as "Los Ilustres."

The cemetery contains a number of white marble sculptures and elegant mausoleums that store the remains of members of rich San Salvadoran families. Many of the pieces were commissioned from renowned artists such as Francisco Durini in other countries, particularly in Genoa, Italy. A range of angel figures in various attitudes are found; religious themes such as La Piedad; some of monumental scale and others with particular traits that represent the deceased's familial rank or background in life. Many of these have been ingrained in the local environment and popular consciousness. Among these are the statues of Luperca nursing Romulus and Remus in the Italian Assistenza tomb (popularly known as "La Loba") and "La Novia," a sculpture by Lidia S. Cristales de López, who died six months after getting married in 1924.

Besides, an airplane in the tomb of pilot Enrico Massi; a motorcycle on top of a cemetery; a sculptures known as "The Twins," in which an angel appears to take two little sisters to carry them with him, in which the angel holds the smaller one and gives the elder one his arm, and so on.

Since 2001, there has been a motion in the Legislative Assembly to transform this space into Cultural Heritage, but it has not succeeded. Many figurines have been uprooted or severely damaged as a result of vandalism and adverse weather. However, in 2009, the mayor of San Salvador enacted an ordinance designating this section as a "protected zone."

Address: San Salvador, El Salvador