Casa Rossini is the birthplace of the composer Gioachino Rossini, born in Pesaro on 29 February 1792 in what is today via Rossini 34; in 1892, a hundred years after his birth, the Comune bought the building and turned it into a museum.
What to see
The house-museum is visited along a biographical-creative itinerary and keeps documentary material, including prints and relics tied to the composer's life and work. The core is the donation of the Parisian collector Alphonse Hubert Martel, with prints of Rossini's works and of his famous performers: Adelina Patti (Rosina in the Barber of Seville), Giovan Battista Rubini (Otello), Giuditta Pasta (Tancredi) and Gilbert-Louis Duprez (Arnold in Guillaume Tell). Worth noting are a collection of thirty printed portraits of Rossini, from youth to old age, and a drawing by Gustave Doré showing him on his deathbed; among the caricatures stands a statuette by Jean Pierre Dantan lampooning Rossini and other figures of the nineteenth-century musical world. In the room devoted to music are a fortepiano built in Venice in 1809 and some autographs of the maestro.
Since 2015 the house has been completely renewed, with enlarged spaces and state-of-the-art technology; on the ground floor is a store devoted to the composer. Thanks to the collaboration with the Fondazione Rossini, autograph letters and scores, original libretti of Rossini's operas and digitised scores have been added, which can be consulted on touch screens along the route; special stations allow visitors to listen to sound recordings of the letters. A second floor hosts documents on Rossini's performers and operas and temporary exhibitions. The building, of four floors plus a basement, was made between the fifteenth and the eighteenth century with later interventions; the exterior has no particular artistic qualities, but its structure stands out along the street and is appreciated by the people of Pesaro. By royal decree of 25 February 1904 it was declared a national monument.
Visiting
The house is at via Rossini 34, in Pesaro; its page appears on the website of the museums of Pesaro (pesaromusei.it). The sources consulted give neither hours nor tickets: these should be checked on the site.
Our editors' tip
Along the route stop at the listening stations: they let you hear sound recordings of the composer's letters and help, according to the sources, to understand Rossini's biography and artistic career better.
