A journey across the country to discover the simple houses and splendid royal palaces chosen from amongst the many stately homes and mansions Italy has to offer. Houses selected not only for their beauty or the fame and importance of their inhabitants, but because they tell a story - always different, always captivating. The house museums illustrated in this book are divided according to type (Houses of famous people, Collector's Houses, Houses of "Beauty", Houses that have witnessed historic events, Houses chosen by a community, Stately Homes, Royal Palaces and places of power, Houses of the Clergy, Ethno-Anthropological Houses). There is a different itinerary for each house, giving the visitor an insider's guide to Italian culture, its arts, crafts, music and poetry as well as its gastronomic traditions and art of living. The book not only suggests a new way to visit these museums - which increasingly meet and satisfy the new expectations of a growing and varied public - but it also gives the reader a tool to make their own tourist itineraries far from the madding crowd. Rosanna Pavoni graduated in History of Art and up to 2002 was the Director of the Bagatti Valsecchi House Museum in Milan. She is one of the founders and President of the International Council of Museums/ICOM. She has curated their publications and was the initiator and promoter of the international study on different types of house museums around the world. She teaches Museology at the Insubria University in Como.

Historic house museums can be found in nearly every city in the United States and Canada. These are the homes of the earliest settlers, statesmen, frontiersmen, great writers, artists, architects, and industrial magnates. These are the places, carefully saved and preserved, that represent a cultural heritage. Despite their popularity, it is not uncommon to find museums that are in poor repair, their collections neglected and their staffs grossly overworked. Many are run by well-meaning and hard-working volunteers who have little or no professional training. Often they survive on shoestring budgets and are able to present only limited programs. Serving both as a hands-on guide and reference, this book examines these problems, offering practical advice and solutions which can be easily implemented. Its useful "lessons" include governance, where to find help, care of collections, conservation, security, and interpretation--all designed to increase the professionalism of the historic house museum.

Italian Opera in the 18th and 19th centuries was an experience unequaled anywhere else in the world. The unique emotion, flavor, and passion that existed have yet to be attained in any other country. Opera houses in Italy are the birthplace of this great art form. They represent its beauty and richness. More than just concrete, stone, glass, and wood, they are alive, each with a character and history of its own. This work recreates the social, political, architectural, and performance histories of each house by including eyewitness accounts from Italian newspapers, journals, and books of the time. It covers more than 50 Italian opera houses and festivals, organized by their city of origin and geographic region. Each chapter is a journey back in time, beginning with the first theaters and performances in the city and concluding with an architectural description of the principal theater and a practical information guide for visitors (including hotel recommendations). The operatic activities of the main theater, including inaugurations, important performances, and world premieres, are also covered. A photospread, along with brief descriptions of opera-related sites, including the birthplaces, dwellings, and museums of Italy's greatest composers, give an even more complete portrait of the art.

The original Getty Museum, housed in a replica of a Roman Villa on a site overlooking the Pacific Ocean, is one of Los Angeles's most treasured landmarks. Closed for almost ten years while renovations were made to the building and the site itself was transformed into a center for the study of antiquities and conservation, the Getty Villa is now set to open late in 2005. The Getty Villa is a lively history of the Getty Museum, its renowned antiquities collections, and its growth from a small museum in a ranch house in Malibu to its first home in a building designed to replicate what we know of the Villa dei Papiri, an ancient Roman villa partially uncovered in Herculaneum. Most engagingly, this book records the ten-year adventure in reconfiguring a beautiful, but topographically challenging, site into one that could continue to accommodate the splendid Museum building and also provide for an outdoor theater, laboratories for conservation work and research, offices for staff and visiting scholars, and an education program for adults and children. This is a story of architectural imagination, geographical challenges, and legal hurdles, all of which have resulted in a truly unique and beautiful site. The story is an enlightening and rewarding one for anyone interested in architecture and in the difficulties posed by building on a grand scale in the twenty-first century. Beautifully illustrated throughout, the book includes 250 reproductions of works of art, photographs of both the old and the new Getty Museum, site plans, and architectural elevations.

Creating tours, school programs, and other interpretive activities at historic house museums are among the most effective ways to engage the public in the history of their community and yet many organizations fail to achieve their potential. This guide describes the essential elements of successful interpretation: content, audience, and methods.

This book is a lush and beautiful memoir of a very special house and a superb recreation of a bygone era.