Creato in sessant’anni di appassionato collezionismo da Mario Praz (Roma 1896-1982) anglista e critico di levatura internazionale, si presenta come una dimora nobiliare del secolo XIX arredata in tutti i suoi dettagli con mobili, dipinti, sculture, tappeti, tendaggi, lampadari, bronzi, cristalli, porcellane, miniature, argenti e marmi.
Acquistati sul mercato antiquariale europeo, in Francia, in Germania ed in Inghilterra, oltre che in Italia, questi arredi offrono una godibilissima panoramica di una ‘philosophy of furnishing’ che spans from the neoclassical taste of the late eighteenth century through the Empire style, to the more domestic Biedermeier manner that characterizes the second half of the nineteenth century, reception rooms and bedrooms, libraries, study and dining room present themselves one after the other to the visitor who is welcomed as in a still inhabited dwelling, with fresh flowers in vases and open books on the tables.
On the walls many paintings depict views of nineteenth-century interiors and it is not unusual to find among the furnishings of the house some of the objects reproduced in the paintings themselves, such as the large Erard harp of the early nineteenth century placed in the study, near a portrait of a lady in a blue dress fashionable in 1830 leaning on an identical musical instrument.
Relatively small museum, but full of atmosphere, packed with over 1200 objects, it is visited with some necessary precautions for small groups of no more than 10/12 people who, accompanied by staff, are guided along a selected route lasting 45 minutes.
