Museum of Teatro Argentina

The Museum, established in 1973, is housed inside the historic Teatro Argentina, the most important in Rome, built in the first half of the 18th century on a project by the Marquis Gerolamo Theodoli, under the direction of Nicola Zabaglia. Set up in two rooms of the attic, the small museum, illustrating the activity of the prestigious theater, traces its history.

The collection is divided into three sections: the first, topographical, documents the history of the area on which the theater was built called "Argentina" from the Latin name Argentoratum, today's Strasbourg, birthplace of Johannes Burckhardt, the famous papal master of ceremonies who had the nearby medieval tower incorporated into its house.

The second, richer, includes the remains of the ancient structure and the previous decorations of the Theater: among these four fragments of the oldest preserved velarium - ceiling - are exhibited, with cherubs and festoons of flowers from the 18th-19th centuries; two Pompeian-style wall paintings of the end of the 19th century; the cartoon and five original studies for the curtain depicting the "Nymph Egeria advising Numa Pompilio" and two preparatory drawings for the curtain of the Apollo Theater, works by Cesare Fracassini (1838-1868), a famous Roman painter of the time.

In the third section the life of the theater is illustrated with stage costumes from the opera "I Masnadieri” and, also, photos of playbills, drawings and portraits of singers, actors and dancers from the first opera performed in the theater in 1732, "Berenice" and the scenography of the 1900s.

Part of the material on display reproduces the originals kept in the Burcardo Library, the Capitoline Archives, the Municipal Prints and Drawings Department and Palazzo Braschi. The museum spaces are completed by a panoramic terrace with a striking view of the remains of the temples in the archaeological area of ​​Largo Argentina.

Photo:  courtesy of Sovrintendenza Archeologica