Cemetery origins 

The first cemetery at this location was built in 1775, located outside the city’s perimeter wall, as the state of churchyard graves inside the old city was considered unsanitary. Thereafter the first cemetery was destroyed by Napoleon’s troops in 1813, and therefore the Italian architect Antonio Ginesi was commissioned to rebuild it. Subsequently the new site was reconsecrated by Bishop Pau de Sitjar i Ruata on 15 April 1819. Finally, it was formally opened in 1898 by the Bishop of Barcelona Josep Climent i Avinent

A stroll among the dead

There are nooks and crannies of great artistic and historic interest throughout the grounds so consequently it is popular with photographers and artists. Poblenou cemetery is really a small museum of funeral art, filled with sculptures and hidden gems.

The kiss of death

The sculpture above the grave of Josep Llaudet Soler is undeniably Poblenou’s best-known monument. Generally known as The Kiss of Death (El petó de la mort in Catalan or El beso de la muerte in Spanish), the work dates to 1930 and depicts a winged skeleton kissing the cheek of a young man’s apparently lifeless body.