Museo LETS - Letteratura Trieste

LETS, the Trieste Museum of Literature, brings together the city's literary history and author collections devoted to Italo Svevo, James Joyce and Umberto Saba.

Why it matters

The municipal museum developed by bringing the earlier Svevo and Joyce museums into one institution dedicated to Trieste's twentieth-century and contemporary literature. Its name abbreviates Letteratura Trieste and reflects the city's multilingual literary culture. The collections connect the writers' work with the social and historical setting of a Habsburg port that became an Italian city.

What to notice

The museum combines a historical display based on newspapers, a writers' hall and spaces devoted to Svevo, Joyce and Saba. The Svevo room evokes the author's household and includes references to Ettore Schmitz, the novelist's real name. The Joyce section reflects the Irish writer's years in Trieste, while the Saba collection presents the poet's life and work in the city.

Context and history

The former Museo Sveviano and Museo Joyciano preserved the city's two internationally known literary figures. LETS was conceived with a broader remit: to represent Trieste's literary life, past and contemporary. Its location in the Piazza Hortis library quarter places the author collections within a wider civic context of reading and culture. The museum is operated by Trieste Cultura of the Comune di Trieste.