For the design of this monumental and, in some respects, scenographic cemetery, Commendator Crespi announced a public competition, in June 1896, through the Brera Academy of Milan.
The commission, chaired by Carlo Ceppi of Turin, examined twenty-seven projects from which it chose the one created by the architect Gaetano Moretti, who graduated as Professor of Architectural Drawing at Brera in 1883.
Work began in the summer of 1905, in a place surrounded by greenery not far from the confluence of the Adda and Brembo rivers and reachable via a long avenue planted with cypress trees, which is nothing other than the continuation of the main artery of the village.
The visual impact of the cemetery as a whole is impressive, with the front occupied by the gigantic mausoleum of the Crespi family, developed above a three-story staircase, in a mixed style, which blends elements from different historical eras (especially oriental and classical).