The  biography of the actor and patriot Gustavo Modena states that "it was only thanks to courtesy of non-Catholics that the great artist’s body was given an honourable burial".

The "courtesy" was to his widow Julie Calame's who was a member of  the Protestant community. Julie was of Swiss origin and at barely eighteen she had married the Venetian actor, against the wishes of her family and especially of her father, a notary.

The couple spent their lives touring and travelling, because of Gustavo’s political beliefs, as he was a fervent supporter of Mazzini’s . In the last phase of their lives, they spent their summers in Torre Pellice at a distance from the hated Turin, that Modena called "codinopoli" (reactionaryville).

When he died in 1861, the widow bought a plot inside the Non-Catholic graveyard. According to the biography published posthumously in 1888, he had a  funeral was majestic and many prominent  political and academic figures attended. Just eight years later, Julie Calame also died and was buried next to her partner.