The design of the cemetery of the City of Genoa dates back to Napoleon's Edict of Saint-Cloud from 1804, when he forbade burials in churches and towns.

However, he died the same year as a result of the cholera epidemic that struck the city and the project passed to his assistant and pupil Giovanni Battista Resasco [it] (1798–1871).

The latter, buried in a plot designed by architect Louis de Soissons, were mainly garrison burials or reburials concentrated from other cemeteries.

[2][3] A grieving angel on the Ribaudo family tomb, sculpted by Onorato Toso also c. 1910, was used as an alternate cover for the 12" version of the single "Love Will Tear Us Apart".

In that same year, a smaller selection of Friedlander's Staglieno photographs were published by the LeRoy Neiman Center for Print Studies, Columbia University, in a limited edition set of photogravures.