The Canova Tadolini Museum in Rome reopened to the public in October 2003, after more than 35 years of closure. Thanks to a careful restoration intervention, respectful of the materials and nineteenth-century structures, the original atmosphere of the art studio has been preserved, where plaster casts of different subjects and of various sizes and types are deliberately crowded without a precise arrangement.
Here worked Antonio Canova, who left the atelier to his pupil and spiritual heir Adamo Tadolini, founder of the family of sculptors who used it until the 1960s.
The rooms on the ground floor host a rich series of plaster casts by Canova, Thorvaldsen, and especially the Tadolinis Adamo, Scipione, Giulio, and Enrico, and the room with the trade tools and stone basins used for making plaster; climbing the narrow and steep wooden stairs leads to the upper floors and the Anatomy room, where the sculptors’ anatomical plaster exercises are found.
