Piazza S.Francesco 3 tel.+39.095/7150535 free/ monday to saturday 9a.m-13 p.m; sunday/ holidays from 8.30 a.m to 13.30 p.m
“On Sunday morning I took my friend Mario
Soldati, who was passing through Catania,
to see the house where Vincenzo Bellini was born. Up a few steeps, through a
small door in a thick wall and we entered the first room which, despite the
fact that the house was tranformed into a museum many years ago, still
maintains that intimate air of a private home. It’s like walking into one of
those apartments of old Catania
that are still inhabited today by unimportant clerks. In the calm and
melancholic light that comes from the french windows over Via Vittorio
Emanuele, the mementos are carefully arranged in the small rooms. Here is the
alcove where Vincenzo was born – now almost completely filled by his
harpsichord. The keybord is covered, as though Bellini had played it just
recently. The small personal objects that once belonged to the young maestro,
kept behind the glass of display cases, still seem full of intimacy in the
light in this Catanese house”.
Thus Ercole Patti in his Diario Siciliano
(1971) described the slightly decadent, familial atmosphere to be found in the
house-museum of Vincenzo Bellini. The museum is in the birthplace of the
Catanese musician wich is in the eighteenth-century Palazzo Gravina-Cruyllas,
in Piazza san Francesco. The maestro spent some sixteen years in this
house.Visiting the rooms is only possible with a guide because the arrangement
of the objects and the manuscripts is not easy to decipher. A small musical
library containing material useful for specific research and study on Bellini
is housed in an annex to the museum. The museum was opened in May 1930. The
rooms are arranged to as to explain the sequence of Bellini’s biography and the
develpment of his work. The visit begins in the Room A, which still has its
original floor. Documents regarding Bellini’s childhood and photographs of old Catania hang on the walls.
A lectern in this rooms holds the visitors album signed by king Vittorio
Emanuele. There is also a small sculpture of Bellini by Salvatore Grimaldi.
Descendants of the maestro state that the alcove is the place where he was
born. The entire space is now occupied by the harpsichord belonging to his
cuosin Vincenzo, which was played by bellini himself during a subsequent stay
in Catania. On
the rear wall a fine portrait of Bellini stands out.
In Room B, which was perhaps the sitting room,
many personal objects are kept. On the walls there are many portraits of the
maestro, of his patrons the Dukes of Sammartino, and two tapestries embroidered
by Giuditta Turina and other Milanese ladies. At the centre of the room is a
display case full of mementoes and the wax mask of Bellini’s face.
Room C contains panel that help reconstruct the
main periods in the life of the composer: the Catanese period in the life of
the composer: the Catanese period, 1801-1819; the Neapolitan period, 1819-1827;
the Milanese period, 1827- 1833; Palermo, 1832; London, 1833; the Parisian
period, 1833-1835.
Room D, which was perhaps not used by Bellini,
contains manuscripts and musical scores. Both juvenilia and works from his full
artistic maturity are preserved here. Among the other exhibits is a Viennese
table piano in yellow.
copyright Giuseppe Maimone Publisher