Fu Albano Sorbelli, pupil of Giosuè Carducci and director for many years of the Biblioteca dell’Archiginnasio, to lead the reorganization of the book and archival material and the faithful reconstruction of the daily living environment of the poet.
The building of Casa Carducci, dating back to the 1500s, was for at least two centuries the place of worship of the Confraternity of Santa Maria della Pietà called del Piombo. In 1798, following the Napoleonic suppressions, the premises were transformed into residences. From 1890, Carducci lived there, present in Bologna since 1860, the year he was called to teach Italian Literature at the University.
Purchased, while still inhabited by the poet, by Queen Margherita – precisely to prevent the collection accumulated over years of study from being dispersed – the residence was donated to the Municipality of Bologna shortly after Carducci’s death, in 1907.
Decorated in the style of late nineteenth-century bourgeois houses, the apartment preserves its original layout. The dominant element is the library rich with forty thousand volumes including many rare editions, eighteen-hundred eighty sixteenth-century editions and texts commented and annotated by Carducci himself. The books catalogued and ordered by the poet, by author or by subject, are distributed in six rooms: foreign authors in the entrance hall, Italian literature of the 18th-19th centuries and texts on the Risorgimento in the second room; in the study, around the work table and on the walls, there are the collection of Dante editions, Latin classics and reference works. Books are also arranged in the bedroom and in the dining room.
In the four wardrobes in the corridor, archive material with letters and manuscripts is kept. On the walls, in the various rooms, busts and portraits of Carducci are visible. Next to the small building, leaning against the city walls, is the memorial garden, dominated by the monument to Carducci.
Carved in Carrara white marble by Leonardo Bistolfi, it was inaugurated in 1928: four panels depicting complex allegories on the literary work and the Risorgimento historical events form the background to a statue of the poet seated in a thoughtful pose.
