In Rome, inside Palazzo Primoli, the house museum of Mario Praz, the greatest Italian Anglicist and eccentric Anglophile, man of letters and critic, who in his apartment had recreated a cultured compendium of good living at the time of the Grand Tour.

Mario Praz was born in Rome in 1896, at the end of a century that he would end up loving so much that to the point that he never let it “finish” by focusing his studies, his passions, such as home interiors, and his many collections on it. In 1923 he went to London, also working at the British Museum, and from there he became passionate about the British world and its literature, in particular from the 17th century to the Victorian era, becoming one of the world’s greatest experts.

In sixty years of collecting, Mario Praz, for years a professor of English literature at the University of Rome, has put together over 1000 objects that were never particularly expensive but full of meaning (and who knows what he would have collected if he had had the resources), including furniture, paintings, sculptures, chandeliers, crystal, porcelain, miniatures, silver and marble…, which he brought together in what today appears as a cultured noble residence of the 19th century, although he had only moved there in 1969.

The greatest pleasure in travelling is achieved when movement in space is combined with movement in time.

(Mario Praz, “The World I Saw”)

In fact, furniture was a real obsession for Praz, so much so that in 1949 he wrote the book Philosophy of Furniture which deals with the development of interior styles from antiquity to the early twentieth century. His house reflects in particular the Neoclassical style of the late 18th century up to the Empire style of the Napoleonic era which is contrasted by the German and Austrian Biedermeier style, in addition to Praz’s true passion, the English Regency style (the one in Bridgerton for example).

Having become a museum house after his death in 1982, following the purchase by the Italian state, after 2 years of closure for restoration, it reopened in 2024, still set up faithfully respecting the wishes of the owner, who took care of the arrangement of each individual piece and where each individual object has a historical or philosophical meaning.

A visit offers us the precious opportunity to take a leap into the past, as if we were entering the home of a gentleman during the Grand Tour. It is precisely to this initiatory journey to various European countries, first and foremost Italy, which the aristocracy had been accustomed to undertaking since the 18th century, that Praz dedicates a part of his latest book, “The World I Saw”.

In his house museum, we find, in fact, many original objects that tell us how, for example, the English saw Italy and how it appeared in the 19th century. They are his collections of “postcards” and souvenirs of the time, such as paintings of Italian panoramas and fans decorated with famous views and archaeological monuments of Rome. This is just a hint of the many stories that unfold from his collections and that it would take a lifetime to tell them all.

After visiting the museum, you will surely want to read one of Mario Praz’s books, to understand a little more about our era through the cultured and witty eyes of those who fled it, taking refuge in the beauty of the past.

The Secret

The great director Luchino Visconti dedicated a character to Mario Praz: he is the professor in the 1974 film Conversation Piece (in Italian Gruppo di famiglia in un interno) inspired by him and his house.

Useful Info

Museo Mario Praz
Via Zanardelli 1
00186 Roma
Tel. +39 06 6861089

Entrance: 6 euro full ticket with reservation, to buy tickets Musei Italiani