Mario Praz house-museum reopens in Rome after extensive renovations

The Mario Praz Museum, dedicated to the essayist, writer and critic, among the most important figures in the field of Anglistics, reopens to the public. The museum is located in Rome, on Via Zanardelli, in the apartment of Palazzo Primoli, where he himself lived from 1969 to 1982, the year of his death. From today it will therefore be possible to visit, for the time being with free admission, the house-museum that shows decades of passionate collecting reflecting his tastes and inclinations: from his love for the Napoleonic period to his interest in interior furnishings and objects of use from the same period, to his profound attention to detail visible in the careful choice of the position of each object, based on not only aesthetic but also cultural and intellectual correspondences.

Mario Praz’s collection, consisting of more than 1,000 works of which about 800 are on display, includes his favorite objects and themes: Empire-style furniture, portraits, interior paintings, but also waxes, with real characters and scenes from myth and family portraits from the Northern European tradition.

During the period of temporary closure, the Ministry of Culture carried out extensive restorations, both on the service structures and the works, coordinated by Museum Director Francesca Condò, with the collaboration of restorer Silvana Costa. The interventions were made possible thanks to the General Directorate for Museums of the Ministry of Culture, headed by Massimo Osanna, who also holds the position of avocating director of the State Museums Directorate of the City of Rome, of which the museum is part.

“It reopens to the public a particularly evocative place,” said Osanna, “which tells us about an important personality of Italian and European culture through the objects he himself collected and organized in a true exhibition form. Thanks to the just-completed restorations, the new assignments of dedicated staff and the additional funding allocated, this house-museum, rich in literary, artistic and history of costume and furnishing cues, is a candidate for becoming an essential destination in the itineraries of visits to the heart of Rome, also with a view to an important diversification of the cultural offer.”

The museum’s new logo is also intended to reflect Mario Praz’s personality: in fact, it includes his profile as a portrait-cameo, in honor of the neoclassical taste; the books, which allude to his great culture and career as an Anglist and essayist; and the phrase he himself quoted on the occasion of the move from Palazzo Ricci to Palazzo Primoli, taken from the Old Testament: Sapientia aedificavit domum sibi, or “Wisdom has built herself a house.”

“Today we add another small but valuable addition to our cultural heritage, the house museum of Mario Praz, a witty literary critic and Anglicist,” commented Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano. “Houses often reflect the personal and intellectual characters of their inhabitants. Praz wrote ’The House of Life,’ referring to another apartment of his, the one on Via Giulia, showing how even a small space can be the starting point for reflections that embrace the whole world and human nature. I like to remember Praz’s nonconformity, his position as a detached observer, proper to the conservative, which led him to a harsh critique of Sixty-Eight.”

The museum is open daily, except Tuesdays, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Free admission by reservation at dms-rm.museopraz@cultura.gov.it or 06.6861089. Admission for groups of up to 10 people, visits of about 45 minutes starting at 9-10-11-12 and 15-16-17-18.

Photo by Emanuele Antonio Minerva © Ministry of Culture

Mario Praz house-museum reopens in Rome after extensive renovations

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