Casa Museo Mario Praz

The Casa Museo Mario Praz preserves the apartment in Palazzo Primoli where the critic and anglicist lived from 1969 until his death in 1982. More than 1,200 objects—furniture, paintings, sculpture and decorative arts—remain arranged as a house collection shaped by Praz's own taste.

Why it matters

Mario Praz (1896–1982) was an influential literary critic and essayist whose writing explored connections between art, furniture and manners. Over more than sixty years he assembled objects from across Europe, creating a collection that embodies his interest in the visual culture of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The state acquired the collection from his heirs in 1986, and the museum opened to the public in 1995.

What to notice

The ten rooms include reception spaces, bedrooms, libraries, studies and dining rooms, furnished with works ranging from late eighteenth-century Neoclassicism through the Empire style to Biedermeier. Materials and traditions meet throughout: English furniture, French bronzes, Russian malachite, Bohemian crystal and German porcelain. Smaller details include wax portraits, furniture bases carved as turtles, a hot-air-balloon chandelier and a cabinet containing coloured marbles from Russia.

Context and history

Palazzo Primoli was Praz's second Roman home. After living in Palazzo Ricci in Via Giulia, he moved to the Primoli palace in 1969 and remained there until his death. The state acquisition preserved the collection together and reinstated it in the rooms where Praz had lived, maintaining the disposition he had given the objects. His library is also preserved in the same palace by the Fondazione Primoli.