photograph by Manfredi Bellati
BOLOGNA - Il Museo Internazionale e Biblioteca della Musica
We couldn't leave Bologna without going to visit The International Museum and Library of Music, this beautiful jewel of a museum is the legacy that Marina Deserti left behind after she was deputy mayor for culture. Situated in the prestigious sixteenth-century Palazzo Aldrini Sanguinetti restored not only to state of the arts technology but also to it's former splendor. The displays interweave elements of five centuries of European musical history and each room is painted in the color of the period, i.e. Framboise for Rossini (1800) or turquoise for Farinelli (1700). Besides the many portraits, like Thomas Gainsborough's of Johann Christian Bach there are more than seventy musical instruments like the fascinating, absolutely unique polyphonic flute "armonia di flauti" or the grand piano that belonged to Gioachino Rossini, as well as, a wide selection of historical documents of tremendous value, like treaties, librettos, letters and autographed scores. In a room on the ground floor a violin maker's workshop has been restructured, a tribute to Otello Bignami - in Bolgona the art or violin making has been active since the fifteenth century. This museum is really worth a visit not only for it's fascinating contents but also for the modern yet classical restoration and for the palazzo itself with it's frescoes painted at the turn of the 19th century during the Napoleonic and Neoclassical period. Bravissima Marina!

www.museomusicabologna.it