Assistens' popularity also grew due to its reputation as the graveyard du jour for the wealthy and famous. Astronomical writer Johan Samuel Augustin’s request to be interred in Assistens was followed when he died in 1785. Since then, many notable Danes, including writer Hans Christian Andersen, philosopher Søren Kierkegaarde, physicist Niels Bohr, poet Michael Strunge, and singer Natasja Saad, have been laid to rest in the grounds that span 25 hectares.

Hoffman reveals that an outbreak of plague in 1711, which killed an estimated 23,000 citizens in Copenhagen, put extreme pressure on existing burial sites “The deaths were so many that sometimes five coffins were buried on top of each other. This led to the establishment of five new cemeteries on the periphery of the city,” she says.

That very year, famed English architect Christopher Wren advocated the idea of a garden-like cemetery on the edge of town. Soon graveyards were moved outside town limits as populations grew. Austere elements of the church made way for flower beds and landscaping, inviting people to come in and enjoy the verdant grounds.

In 1827, Swedish poet Karl August Nicander wrote that Assistens Cemetery was “one of the most beautiful graveyards” in Europe. “Leafy trees, dark paths, bright open flowery expanses, temples shaded by poplars, marble tombs overhung by weeping willows, and urns or crosses wrapped in swathes of roses, fragrance and bird song, all transform this place of death into a little paradise,” he wrote.

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