Giovan Battista Rubini Museum, Romano di Lombardia

The Museum is named after Giovan Battista Rubini, a virtuoso of bel canto, who lived between 1794 and 1854, a son of the arts.

After his professional debut at S. Moisè in Venice in 1815, he moved to Naples, with engagements at the S. Carlo theater. Supported by impresario Barbaya, he quickly secured important contracts in Vienna and Paris in the mid-1820s, where he established himself as the undisputed interpreter of Rossini’s operas. But it was the music of Vincenzo Bellini that brought Rubini to full maturity: his triumph at La Scala in Milan in ’27 consecrated him as a prima donna tenor in romantic melodrama.

From the 1830s, for fifteen years the singer moved from success to success, touring the major European theaters of France—certainly his most visited country—England, from Prussia to the Netherlands, from Spain to Russia, boasting an enviable repertoire capable of spanning from 18th-century opera to Rossini’s works and ending with the avant-garde compositions of Bellini and Donizetti.

Everything in the house-museum, established by the testamentary will of his wife in 1872, speaks of a life devoted to music, from the rich decoration of the rooms to numerous memorabilia. Frequent are naturally the portraits of the tenor, among which stand out two paintings by Pietro Lucchini (1799-1883), a Bergamo artist well connected in the musical environment for being the brother-in-law of singer Domenico Donzelli. The older of the two canvases, depicting Rubini bust-length in the prime of life, dates back to 1832: executed in Paris, it was exhibited at the Brera Academy in Milan the same year. Later, in 1850, also by Lucchini—who evidently maintained lasting relations with the tenor—is the full-length portrait (kept in the Pirata Room), in which Rubini appears in the uniform of Colonel of the Musicians of all Russias, awarded by the Tsar after successes in Moscow and St. Petersburg. It is a typical environmental portrait where every detail, from the piano to the musical score to the honors, contributes to depicting the tenor in his professional role.

There are numerous portraits of family members; but the most recurring image is that of his wife, portrayed both on canvas by G. Bonchot in 1828—the painting is kept in the room called “The Billiard Room”—and in miniature form. Comelli is also portrayed, using simpler techniques, in widely circulated repertory images. This is the case of the lithograph where she appears in costume beside Rubini during the interpretation of Bellini’s Pirata, one of her husband’s greatest successes. Among the most precious memorabilia recalling the joint careers of Adelaide and Giovan Battista Rubini in support of bel canto, the beautiful neoclassical medal with two profile portraits, minted in bronze, silver, and gold by the Bergamo Philharmonics union in 1830, deserves mention. Unfortunately, nothing remains of the fabulous Rubini Treasure, dispersed at a public auction at the end of the 19th century to meet the complex testamentary wishes of Adelaide Comelli, who had arranged, honoring her husband’s desires, the establishment of three demanding institutions—a boys’ orphanage, a secondary school, and a home for music artists. The Treasure, documented in the inventory drawn up at the auction, consisted of jewels and valuables accumulated by the couple throughout their life, marked not only by brilliant professional successes but also by extraordinary financial recognitions.