The Certosa was a Carthusian monastery for four centuries until Napoleon suppressed the order in 1797 and the buildings became the city's main cemetery. Walking through the long arcaded courtyards is the easiest free way to see late-Romantic and Liberty-style funerary sculpture in Italy: portraits, allegories, mourning figures, occasional bursts of severe modernism.
Many of Bologna's notable nineteenth- and twentieth-century citizens are buried here, including the composer Ottorino Respighi and the poet Giosuè Carducci. The cemetery is open daily and free to enter; pick up a printed plan at the entrance to find specific tombs. Reachable on foot or by city bus from the train station.