Lugo, museum on Gioacchino Rossini opened in his family home

The new Museo di Casa Rossini, dedicated to the figure of composer Gioacchino Rossini (Pesaro, 1792 - Passy, 1868), was inaugurated today in Lugo (Ravenna), and set up in the family home in the Romagna town, which belonged to his grandfather (Rossini himself resided in Lugo from 1802 to 1804, studying in the town and learning his first musical rudiments), on Via Rocca. The museum, on which the Region of Emilia Romagna has invested regional contributions of 52,000 euros, consists of five exhibition rooms, a corridor and a “biographical” staircase, which are presented to the visitor in the layout by artist Claudio Ballestracci. The common thread of the museum is, of course, music.

The first is the Stanza del prodigio, which was inaugurated back in December 2018: it is an interactive environment where one can listen to the Six Sonatas for Four, composed during his studies in Lugo (when the visitor opens one of the four scores resting on the music stands in the center of the room, the corresponding melody starts and the score lights up in large format on the panels on the walls; moreover, when all the scores are opened, the composition resonates in full and the visitor finds himself enveloped in music).

The itinerary then continues with the Map Room, an expanse of crystal domes arranged along a sinusoidal table that traces the path of the “geographies” of Gioacchino Rossini’s life and work. As soon as one of the domes is raised, the notes of one of his compositions resound. Opposite, one enters the third room, the Resonance Room: here one hears phrases about what writers, philosophers, musicians, and scientists from around the world have said about Rossini. Words that are reflected in the small hanging bookcase, offered for reference. On the ground floor, one enters the last space, the pantry room, where Rossini’s well-known passion for cooking surfaces in the titles of his little “sins of old age,” compositions often ironically titled hazelnuts, radishes, pickles, dried figs and more. Opening the drawers of the larder, the visual interpretation given by Massimo Pulini, the first artist involved in the ambitious project of translating the master’s delicacies into images, emerges at one with Rossini’s music.

The museum also delves into Rossini’s time spent in Lugo. During this period, from 1802 to 1804, he began composing music, immediately making his talent known. Although he never lived in the two-story building on Via Rocca, which belonged to his grandfather, Rossini always held it particularly dear. Here, in 1992, the two hundredth anniversary of his birth was celebrated, and the House, with the fundamental contribution of the Lions Club of Lugo, became a venue for cultural events and art exhibitions. In 2018, during the Rossini year 150 years after his death, the idea of transforming it into a museum dedicated to the composer matured. The House Museum will be open on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to noon and 4 to 6 p.m.

Lugo, museum on Gioacchino Rossini opened in his family home

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