Museo Casa di Dante

The Museo Casa di Dante is a 3-floor museum which, with evidences and documents, shows the life and works of the great Italian poet. It is located in the heart of medieval Florence, just in the place where according to documentary evidence the houses of the Alighieri family stood. In the heart of medieval Florence, one of the most evocative buildings in the city is the home of the Museum of Dante’s House.

The original building, dilapidated by time, was rebuilt in the first decade of the twentieth century right where the Alighieri family homes once stood and where Dante was born in 1265, according to a local memory handed down over the centuries which has always indicated the group of houses near the Torre della Castagna as “Dante’s houses.”

The museum is set up on three floors, each of which treats a different theme, illustrating through panels and exhibits Dante’s private life, his political activity, and exile, while furnishing also information about medieval Florence in the time when Dante was alive.

The first room, devoted to the Guild of Physicians and Apothecaries, to which Dante belonged, presents plants, minerals and instruments used to create the potions and ointments administered to patients as an early form of medical treatment in the Middle Ages.

In the second room, the political room, panels describe the internal divisions of the city of Florence and the war between competing factions. In the center of the third room, which deals with the Florentine economy, is a scale model showing how Florence was divided into districts in the Middle Ages.

The panels and showcases present the wealth of the city, based above all on trade. To help visitors understand this significant aspect of medieval Florentine society, on the wall is a panel illustrating the trade routes of the most important Florentine families. In the last room on the first floor is a very fine diorama of two armies lined up against each other for the Battle of Campaldino, fought between the Ghibellines of Arezzo and the Guelphs of Florence.

On the second floor, the first room treats the topic of Dante’s exile while in the left corner of the room is a faithful replica of an aristocratic bedroom. In the room that follows is a video presenting the Divine Comedy as illustrated by Gustave Doré, an important French artist who brought Dante’s masterpiece to life with superb illustrations.

The third and top floor presents a blowup of the Divine Comedy flanked by three color reproductions of the three canticles that make up the poem. This room, situated on the porch of the tower house, is a great attraction for visitors because of the beauty and complexity of the work. The original books in the side showcases are very rare and valuable. Description by http://www.museocasadidante.it/en/