Museo Internazionale della Musica

The International Museum and Library of Music preserves letters of Padre Martini, instruments collected since 1881 and materials relating to Rossini's Bologna. It opened in 2004 in a frescoed palace on Strada Maggiore, joining musical history with the city's architectural heritage.

Why it matters

Bologna's musical history is closely connected with Padre Giovanni Battista Martini, the Franciscan theorist to whom the young Mozart corresponded. The International Museum and Library of Music grew from Martini's world and the instrument collection of the city's Liceo musicale, preserving documents and objects from several centuries of musical life. It opened in 2004 in the restored Palazzo Aldini Sanguinetti, whose frescoed salons preserve the building's Neoclassical character.

What to notice

The palace's sixteenth-century structure was enriched around 1798 for the Aldini family with Neoclassical decoration by artists including Antonio Basoli, Vincenzo Martinelli and Pelagio Palagi. The Sala delle Virtù and Sala delle Feste were formed by dividing an earlier salon. The museum's collections include Padre Martini's letters and correspondence, instruments assembled at the Liceo musicale from 1881, and printed music, manuscripts and opera librettos from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. The Sala Egizia is frescoed by Gaetano Lodi. A reconstruction of Bolognese luthier Otello Bignami's workshop preserves evidence of a local craft tradition.

Context and history

The palace's biography rehearses Bologna's social history. Its core belonged to the Loiani family in the early sixteenth century; after the Riario brothers bought it in 1569 it grew by acquisitions, and around 1798 the Aldini family, under architect Giovanni Battista Martinetti, absorbed a neighbouring house with a medieval tower of the Oseletti family. In 1832 the tenor Domenico Donzelli bought the property and hosted Gioachino Rossini there while the composer's own nearby home was being renovated. The Sanguinetti family owned it from 1870 and commissioned the library decorations; Eleonora Sanguinetti donated the building to the city, and the museum opened in 2004.

The collections are older than their present home. Martini's books, portraits and papers anchored eighteenth-century musical scholarship; the instrument collection began in 1881 at the Liceo musicale Bolognese. In 2006 UNESCO admitted Bologna to its Creative Cities network as a City of Music. Other institutions associated with the city's musical heritage include the Teatro Comunale and San Colombano.