Il Museo di Roma in Trastevere is housed in the former monastery of Sant’Egidio, where the barefoot Carmelites lived until the capture of Rome. Once restored, in 1976 the building became home to the Museo del Folklore e dei poeti romaneschi, where materials related to Roman popular traditions from the Museo di Roma and the Gabinetto Comunale delle Stampe were preserved.
In 2000 it was reopened to the public under the name Museo di Roma in Trastevere. The new renovation allows for a use more suited to current museographic needs, particularly lending itself to the organization of temporary exhibitions especially of photography, shows, conferences, and concerts.
The museum’s permanent collection shows the main aspects of Roman popular life from the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, filtered through the tastes and beliefs of the artists and folklorists who represented it. The themes most present in the collection are costumes, popular dances, secular and religious festivals, and trades.
In particular, the collection includes a collection of paintings, prints, drawings, and watercolors, including a selection from the famous series “Roma sparita” by Ettore Roesler Franz (Rome 1845 – 1907): a nativity scene set in nineteenth-century Rome; six realistic environment representations, better known as Le Scene Romane, which reproduce life-sized aspects of Roman popular life in the nineteenth century.
Part of the museum’s collection are materials belonging to the great poet Trilussa (Rome 1871 – 1950) donated after his death to the city of Rome and partly displayed in the video installation called the “Stanza di Trilussa”.
