ASSOCIATED HOME

Michele Tedesco was born in Moliterno on August 24, 1834 by Giacomo and Anna Racioppi, and since she was young, she has revealed her vocation for study and art. A maternal uncle, the abbot prof. Antonio Racioppi, who educated Giacomo Racioppi, summoned him to Naples where he enrolled at the School of Arts and Letters. After completing his studies and painting course, in 1860 he moved to Florence to deepen his studies and His artistic experience and in this city took part in the group of Telemaco Signorini. He visited not only many Italian cities to come into contact with art, but also reached the main cultural centers of all Europe.
During a trip to Bavaria, he met and married the painter Julia Hoffman with whom she lived in Naples. He soon became an educated and ingenious artist and always lived on the income of his work. After 1877, he moved to Portici where, working as a painting master, taught design and was also director of the School of Drawings and Sketches. In 1890 he won the Drawing of Designers at the Institute of Fine Arts in Naples. In a short time he became famous and admired and collaborated in several newspapers of art criticism and exhibition. He died in 1917.

In the Domenico Aiello home there are 18 notebooks, drawings and watercolors that embrace an arch of about 20 years and eloquently testify how vast and articulate his personality was.

There are also real master oils such as “La morte del cardellino “ and “La segreta attesa “.
The Casa Museo Domenico Aiello was born as a tribute of his son Gianfranco to his father figure.
In July 2010, after a careful restoration, this Lucan house was inaugurated as a place of culture.
Saturday, June 18, 2016, six years after its opening, has undergone a new exhibition in its final appearance of the Museum of nineteenth-century Lucan.
It houses in particular precious rarity of the greatest Lucanian painter Michele Tedesco (also native of Moliterno). The oils, the drawings, the 18 artist notebooks of the latter are flanked by the works of the other great artists: Giacomo Di Chirico, Vincenzo Marinelli, Angelo Brando, etc.

Sidney Sonnino was one of the most authoritative exponents of Italian liberalism. An opponent of Giolitti, he was twice Prime Minister (1906 and 1909-1910). He was Foreign Minister (1914-1919) and signed the Treaty of London. An attentive reformer of the agricultural system, he was a staunch supporter of universal suffrage. The Castello di Montespertoli is located only 20 km from Florence, within easy reach of Pisa and Siena. King Umberto I, Vittorio Emanuele III, D'Annunzio and Giolitti were his illustrious guests. The oldest parts of the castle are the thirteenth-century tower and chapel. It is now an home to Baron Alessandro and Baroness Caterina de Renzis Sonnino that, in the over more than 57 hectares of the estate, produce olive oils and wines Chianti Montespertoli D.O.C.G. They set up the Sidney Sonnino Study Centre. The Archive keep some documents about nineteenth-century Italy and the First World War. The rooms in which the politician lived have been preserved intact, as well as his vast library.

The story of Enzo Ferrari, one of the greatest Italians of the twentieth century, began in this house where his memory is treasured now. The adventure of a figure who left an enduring mark on his times started here. Destined for planetary fame, Ferrari never forgot his roots, but he was a revolutionary. He was a child in this home and dreamt of making cars more and more competitive. He came from a peasant culture, but he was fascinated by technology. He understood that cars, from mere desirable objects, may have turned into a luxury object, or even a work of art. Ferrari, with the Prancing Horse as a symbol, soon acquired the outline of the myth. The home-mechanical workshop, run by the foundation “Casa di Enzo Ferrari – Museo”, includes his birthplace and a futuristic automotive design gallery, painted in yellow (the colour of the City of Modena) that Enzo Ferrari chose as the background for the Prancing horse on his famous logo.

The Birth Home Museum is situated in an apartment on the second floor of a historic building in the heart of the City of Lucca where Giacomo Puccini was born on December 22, 1858. In this house the composer spent the happy years of his childhood and teenage years, where he first learned about music and submitted to the discipline crucial to his musical formation. In 1884 he found success in Milan, beginning his international operistic career which made him one of the most famous and beloved composers in history. Giacomo Puccini always remained very attached to this house, so much so that he wanted to retain the property even if he took up residence in other places.

The Birth Home, transformed into a museum back in 1979, re-opened to the public on September 13, 2011. Important renovations reconfigured the original layout of the home and created a completely renewed exhibit. The museum preserves original furniture, precious objects which belonged to the composer, such as the Steinway & Sons piano on which he composed Turandot, autograph scores of youthful compositions (his first work, Preludio a orchestra, re-discovered in 1999, the Mass for four voices dated 1880), many letters from and to Puccini (those from Giulio Ricordi are particularly noteworthy), framed pictures, photographs, sketches, memorabilia and important documents showing the composer’s work, such as page proofs of the librettos of Tosca and The girl of the golden west, rich in autograph notations and musical sketches.
From the donated collections, the costume of Turandot stands out—based on a sketch by Umberto Brunelleschi, worn by Maria Jeritza in the first staging of the opera at the Metropolitan Opera of New York (1926). Thanks to an agreement with Ricordi & C., in a room of the Museum named the Salotto Ricordi, it is possible to admire temporary exhibitions of priceless materials from the Archivio Storico Ricordi.

The Birth Home Museum of Giacomo Puccini is a central element of the Puccini museum, which consists of a journey along the footprints left by the great composer, to rediscover his personality, his genius, and his passion as the creator of extraordinary operas known all over the world.

Goffredo Parise's Culture House

Goffredo Parise has been one of the most important Italian writers of the twentieth century.
Born in Vicenza in 1929, he published his first novel “Il ragazzo morto e le comete” in 1951 and he reached the success in 1954 with the book “Il prete bello”.
Not only is he a novelist but he is also a journalist.
He was the author of many reportage in the 60s , from China to United States, from Vietnam to Biafra as far as Chile.
In 1970 he moved away to a little house along the Piave banks where he wrote “I Sillabari”, his most famous novel, a set of tales about human mood with a prose writing style really close to poetry.
What inspired him was not only the childhood memories but also the places and the people that he had known in that area.
Due to his state of health in 1984 he left the little house along the Piave banks and moved to a house in Ponte di Piave where he died in 1986.
The writer gave his house to the Town Representative on condition that his body was buried in the garden and that his last residence became a Culture Centre named after him.
In this way originated “The Parise's Culture House”: on the first floor there is the Library, on the ground floor the old house where Goffredo Parise spent the last day of his life.
In the house we can see the furnishings and fittings, the clothes and all things that allow us to deepen his biographical knowledge.
There is also a collection of contemporary art, thanks to his acquaintance with the artists of “Piazza del Popolo” School of Rome; the most important are Schifano, Fioroni, Ceroli, Ontani, Angeli, Chia’s paintings and many others.
In the House there is also the Parise's Record, a set of authographs, articles, correspondences about Parise and of Parise, a reference point for many studious of his work.

The Puccini Museum at Celle di Pescaglia, owned by the Lucchesi nel Mondo Association, is based in the house which over three centuries ago was the birthplace of Jacopo Puccini (1712-1781) the first of a long dynasty of musicians of whom Giacomo Puccini (1858 -1924) was the most famous. The great composer in fact spent his early childhood summer holidays with his parents in this lovely 16th century house, but in 1864, after the death of his father Michele, his mother Albina was obliged to sell the property to meet the financial burdens of her large family.

In 1973 however, it once again became “the Puccini house”, thanks to the generosity of the daughters of Ramelde, Giacomo Puccini’s favourite sister, who donated many precious heirlooms, and the vision of the Lucchesi nel Mondo Association which acquired the property. And so the ancient family home became a museum which over the years has been enriched and improved leading up to the latest complete restoration in 2008.

The museum is richly endowed, with plenty to interest amateur music-lovers and scholars alike: the visitor can follow both the private and artistic life of Giacomo Puccini, by means of many items which originally belonged to the great composer, letters and autographed musical scores, and original signed photographs. Of particular interest are the drafts of his first two operas, Le Villi and Edgar, as indeed are the letters to his sister confessing both joy at his successes but also his fears, and his bitterness at the poor reception by both audience and critics of the opening night of Madam Butterfly. Visitors to the museum can in fact see the piano on which this opera – one of Puccini’s most fascinating works – was composed. You will see also the bed in which he was born, his christening robe, and the cradle where as a baby he slept.

And for those interested in social history, the ancient kitchen with its great fireplace and original furnishings gives us a wonderful chance to go back in time to a bygone age.

Nel 1647, il barone Vincenzo Arezzo acquistò la tenuta di Donnafugata da discendenti di casa Cabrera e ne ottenne regolare investitura.
Attorno ad una antica torre di avvistamento si iniziò a formare una masseria con relativa casa padronale dove gli Arezzo controllavano le attività agricole del latifondo.
Nella prima metà dell’800, Francesco Arezzo avviò i lavori di rifacimento per creare un “casino di villeggiatura”. È comunque al figlio Corrado Arezzo De Spucches (1824-1895), che si deve la forma dell’attuale Donnafugata. Il barone, deputato al parlamento di Sicilia nel 1848, Senatore del Regno d’Italia (1861) e Regio Commissario all'Esposizione di Dublino (1865), fu autore di una raccolta di poesie e intenditore di teatro, pittura e musica. La sua villa, sede di mondanità ed eleganza accolse uno dei salotti culturali più noti del Circondario
La nipote Clementina sposò il V.te Gaetano Combes de Lestrade (1859-1918), membro dell’Institut, storico ed economista che a Donnafugata scrisse di politica e diritto internazione e sociologia.
Da Clara (figlia del Lestrade) e dal conte Vincenzo Testasecca, nacque Gaetano, che nel 1982 vendette il Castello al Comune di Ragusa.  
Varie le curiosità. Il Castello occupa una superficie di 2500 mq e si sviluppa su tre piani; dei 120 ambienti sono visitabili solamente una ventina di stanze; degne di nota sono: la biblioteca, la sala degli specchi e la sala della musica. Nel parco monumentale si trova il più vasto labirinto in pietra esistente al mondo. Per regio decreto del 1880 le foglie dei ficus potevano essere spedite come cartoline postali. Per raggiungere Donnafugata fu deviata persino la linea ferroviaria Siracusa-Gela e fu costruita una piccola stazione..
Donnafugata, luogo di memoria, entra nell’arte del cinema per far rivivere le pagine di illustri scrittori. Qui, i fratelli Taviani fissarono un prezioso momento del film “Kaos” (ispirazione pirandelliana) e, Roberto Faenza girò le scene de “I Vicerè”, ispirate al romanzo di De Roberto. Donnafugata accolse anche la narrazione onirica de "L'uomo delle stelle" di Giuseppe Tornatore, per poi diventare il set di alcuni episodi della serie del Commissario Montalbano, tratta dai romanzi di Andrea Camilleri.
Nel castello  è custodita una delle più prestigiose e ampie collezioni di abiti e acccessori antichi. Una serie di mostre temporanee offrono al pubblico una selezione tematica di storia della Moda. Presto sarà aperto nei bassi del Castello il MUDECO (museo del Costume)