Museo Giovan Battista Rubini, Romano di Lombardia

The museum is named after Giovan Battista Rubini, a virtuoso of bel canto, who lived between 1794 and 1854, son of an artist.

After his professional debut at S. Moisè in Venice in 1815, he moved to Naples, where he was engaged at the Teatro S. Carlo. Supported by the impresario Barbaya, he quickly secured important engagements in Vienna and Paris in the mid-1820s, where he established himself as the undisputed interpreter of Rossini’s opera. 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 leading tenor in romantic melodrama.

From the 1830s, for fifteen years, the singer enjoyed success after success, touring the major European theaters from France, certainly the most frequented country, to England, from Prussia to the Netherlands, from Spain to Russia, with an enviable repertoire capable of spanning from eighteenth-century opera to Rossini’s works, 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 Bergamasque artist well introduced in the musical environment as the brother-in-law of the singer Domenico Donzelli. The oldest of the two canvases, portraying Rubini half-length in the prime of his years, dates back to 1832: painted 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 Sala del Pirata) in which Rubini appears in the uniform of Colonel of the Musicians of all Russia, an honor bestowed on him by the Tsar after his successes in Moscow and St. Petersburg. It is a typical environmental portrait where every detail, from the piano to the musical score and honors, contributes to creating an image of the tenor in his professional role.

There are numerous portraits of family members; but the most recurring image is that of the wife, depicted both on canvas, by G. Bonchot in 1828 – the painting is preserved in the so-called “Billiard Room” – and in miniature. Comelli is also portrayed, using simpler techniques, in widely circulated repertory images. This is the case of the lithograph where she appears in stage costume at Rubini’s feet 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 favor of bel canto, mention should be made of the beautiful neoclassical-style medal with two profile portraits, minted in bronze, silver, and gold by the Bergamo Philharmonic Union in 1830. Unfortunately, nothing remains of the fabulous Rubini Treasure, dispersed in a public auction at the end of the nineteenth century to meet the complex testamentary wishes of Adelaide Comelli who 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, which is documented in the inventories drawn up on the occasion of the auction, consisted of jewels and precious items accumulated by the couple during their life, marked not only by brilliant professional successes but also by extraordinary economic recognitions.