The Dante House Museum (Museo Casa di Dante, Casa di Dante) is the house where Dante Alighieri was born and lived, which now houses an exhibition dedicated to his works and life in Florence and outside the city.
Dante Alighieri (full name Durante degli Alighieri, last decade of May 1265 - September 14, 1321) was an Italian poet, thinker, theologian, one of the founders of the literary Italian language and a political figure, who is known primarily as the creator of the "Comedy" (later received the epithet "Divine", introduced Boccaccio), in which a synthesis of late medieval culture was given.
In fact, there is no certainty that Dante's house is exactly the building in which the museum is now located, and in which Dante was born and lived. Since the houses in this place were rebuilt and restored.
Dante himself wrote that he was born in the shadow of Badia Fiorentina under the parish of San Martino.
The current museum includes several modified medieval houses.
The buildings of the Dante House-Museum have a medieval tower appearance and are due to the restoration in 1911 carried out by architect Giuseppe Castellucci, after which the current museum was opened.
In front of the house-museum, although not original, there is a small well, not far from which there is a curious profile of Dante painted by an unknown hand on the floor slab.
On the tower, which is part of the museum, there is a bronze bust of Dante, originally by Augusto Rivalt.
The Dante Museum has three floors and several halls that tell about the chronology of the poet's life and work, and also reveals the curious sides of his personality.
One of the halls highlights various aspects of the medieval life of the city of Florence and its social and political organization. The other presents a modern view of Florence.
An important part of the museum's route is the hall dedicated to the poet's exile: a painful topic that caught him "in the middle of the path" of his life and doomed him to leave his hometown until his death. The hall shows all the known stages of Dante's exile and the cities in which it took place. Also on display in this hall are several volumes, including a reproduction of the ancient Libro del Chiodo and one of the Trivulziano Code 1080, a manuscript of a fourteenth-century comedy.
In addition, in the museum you can see a reproduction of Dante's bedroom with a bed and a desk.
Practical information
Entrance to the Dante House Museum is paid. There are discounted tickets.
Tickets can be purchased at the museum's ticket office.
We recommend checking the ticket price and opening hours of the house museum on the official website of the House Museum of Dante: museocasadidante.it.
The Dante House Museum is located in one of the oldest parts of the historic center of Florence, on Santa Margherita Street, at Via Santa Margherita 1, Firenze.
Coordinates of the Dante House Museum: 43°46'15.6"N 11°15'25.6"E (43.770997, 11.257100).
All accommodation facilities in Florence (hotels, apartments, guest houses, etc.), including in the historical center of the city and more remotely from it, can be viewed and booked here
