Piazza G Carducci 5 - Tel. 051 347592 - A 16th century building housed one of Italy’s most famous literary artists and saved by the Queen Margherita of Savoy in 1906. Carducci’s middle class apartment was left practically untouched. It has Venetian floors, hand-painted wallpaper, terra-cotta fireplaces, many portraits and examples of Carducci iconography and wall to wall of books.

Casa Carducci Photos

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About Casa Carducci

The origins of this building date to the first decade of the 16^th century when it housed a religious order and church. It has since been subjected to a fire in 1712 which almost destroyed it, several rebuilds and sold off for private apartments in 1801 to the Rubini brothers.

Giosue Carducci and his wife Elvira moved here in May 1890 and resided upstairs until his death in February 1907.

Queen Margherita of Savoy donated the house and his entire life’s work to Bologna city council in order ‘to preserve it “eternally ” for the “veneration of Italians and foreigners alike.”’

The study is very much the heart of this building and the desk he used remains as if he had just the room. Pride of place is Carducci’s Nobel Prize for literature in 1906, and actually presented to him here.

The furniture throughout is simple and plain, dating to the 19^th century. Pinewood book cases contain the many historically priceless books and thousands of letters he wrote.

Not even his bedroom escaped being used as an extended library, supposedly storing some 2,000 books covering a variety of subjects and didactic texts, the earliest dating back to the 15^th century.

Among the other characteristics of this house include moulded frieze in Bolognese style, sky-blue wall paper dating to the 18^th century which also decorates the ceiling, black and white family photographs, medals, scrolls all celebrate his illustrious career.

His wife’s bedroom displays ‘landscape scenes reminiscent of the Bolognese School style of the mid-eighteenth century.’

The Drawing Room is the last to visit. It is dominated by the colour red and heavily embellished with ornaments, pictures and Japanese trinkets. A plaster model by Antonio Canova, of a ‘Dancer with finger on chin’ dominates the room.

 

References

A guided visit to Casa Carducci, Bologna 2009, p19, p48.

External Links

http://www.casacarducci.it/htm/home.htm