Keats-Shelley Memorial House

Keats-Shelley Memorial House Discover Rome's hidden secret.
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Situated at the right foot of the Spanish Steps, just a few steps away from Spagna metro station, the Keats-Shelley House is a museum dedicated to the British Romantic poets, who were spellbound by the Eternal City.

26 Piazza di Spagna is most famous for being the final dwelling place of John Keats, who died here in 1821, aged just 25, and to this day Keats’s bedroom is preserved as a shrine to h

is tragic story and extraordinary talent. Displayed through a chain of beautiful rooms, the collection contains a great many treasures and curiosities associated with the lives and works of the Romantic poets, as well as one of the finest libraries of Romantic literature in the world; now numbering more than 8,000 volumes. In addition to the exhibition rooms, there are two spacious terraces boasting stunning views, a book and gift shop, and a small cinema room where visitors can watch an exclusive introductory film about the Romantics. Group visits and talks are available by booking, and the rooms of the House and its terrace are also available for private hire by contacting us.

 Did you know that Mary Shelley was not credited as the author of Frankenstein when the first edition came out? And that...
11/08/2023



Did you know that Mary Shelley was not credited as the author of Frankenstein when the first edition came out? And that the book was published anonymously?

Publishing a book as a woman in the 18th and 19th centuries wasn’t an easy task. Being involved in any type of business, such as profiting from book sales, was considered inappropriate for a woman of the time. However, this didn’t deter women from writing. In order to overcome the problem of authorship, many women published their books in anonymity or using pen names, and Mary Shelley also had the same fate at the beginning of her literary career.

When she finished composing her novel Frankenstein in May 1817, she decided together with her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley, to keep her authorship secret. Due to the morbid subject of the book, another ‘inappropriate’ thing for women to deal with at the time, she also feared she might lose custody of her children.

After several failed attempts to find a publisher, on 1 January 1818 Messrs. Lackington, Allen & Co. printed 500 copies of a three volume edition of Frankenstein.

The book became popular, and with many believing Percy to be the real author of the book, Mary Shelley remained the unacknowledged writer of Frankenstein until 1821, when a French translation came out and she was finally credited. However, it took her two years to receive the same kind recognition in her own country, when eventually a second edition that credited her as the author came out and a written advertisement for Frankenstein with her name on it appeared in the Morning Chronicle, , 11 August 1823, 200 years ago.

In collaboration with other writers and artists all over the world, to honor her and her own mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, who was an early advocate of women’s rights, and the writer of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, we will be sharing this post using the hashtag and to celebrate the remarkable achievements of Mary Shelley, as well as those of many other female writers.

Read more here: https://bit.ly/3KDDLNr

 Did you know that among the items in our collection is a manuscript by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe? This precious manusc...
07/08/2023


Did you know that among the items in our collection is a manuscript by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe?

This precious manuscript was donated by Sir Harold Boulton, Honorary Secretary of the Keats-Shelley Memorial Association between 1906 and 1926, to Sir Rennell Rodd, a British diplomat and one of the founders of the Keats-Shelley House, in 1910.

It is an English translation by Goethe of his poem ‘Die Feier des achtundzwanzigsten Augusts dankbar zu erwiedern’ which he wrote on his 70th birthday, on 28 August 1819, in response to those who wished him happy birthday.

Sir Boulton had been gifted this manuscript by a Mr Goold of Edinburgh for his own 51st birthday. At the time he was travelling around the islands of Fiji. So, before arriving in Rome this manuscript had already travelled to the South Pacific, what a journey!

Images: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, letter from Sir Harold Boulton to Sir Rennell Rodd, manuscript by Goethe, and a printed and autographed version of his poem ‘Die Feier des achtundzwanzigsten Augusts dankbar zu erwiedern’.

 P.B. Shelley died on 8 July 1822, just 15 months after John Keats's death. He drowned off the coast of Tuscany and his ...
18/07/2023



P.B. Shelley died on 8 July 1822, just 15 months after John Keats's death. He drowned off the coast of Tuscany and his body was washed ashore on the beach of Viareggio 10 days later, in 1822. Mary Shelley recalled the moment when her husband's body was found in a letter to her friend Maria Gisborne, dated 15 August 1822:
"all was over — all was quiet now, they had been found washed on shore — Well all this was to be endured."
This lithograph of the discovery of Shelley's body by an unknown artist, now part of our collection, it's a perfect example of the 'romanticization' of the lives of the poets that followed their deaths.

 Do you know when the Keats-Shelley House first opened to the public?By the early 1900s, the house where John Keats live...
12/07/2023



Do you know when the Keats-Shelley House first opened to the public?

By the early 1900s, the house where John Keats lived and died had fallen into disrepair. At the time, the rooms where Keats and Severn had once dwelled were rented by two American writers, Mrs Mary Walcott Haslehurst and her mother. The two women welcomed curious visitors to see the bedroom where Keats died. Their hope was to save the house and preserve it as a shrine to Keats’s memory, but they couldn’t afford to buy the house.

In 1903 they met Robert Underwood Johnson an American poet and journalist who in an attempt to save the house called together a group of American and British residents in Rome. With the help of Sir Rennell Rodd, a poet and a British diplomat, and Harry Nelson Gay, an American writer and historian, as well as other intellectuals such as Agnes Repplier, James Herbert Morse, Martha Gilbert Dickinson and Edith Wharton, the house was saved from demolition. The Keats-Shelley Memorial Association was formed and the house was purchased in 1906, opening to the public in 1909.

This watercolour by William Walcot depicts the piazza in 1909, the same year the house was opened.

https://bit.ly/44nvqVW

The Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley died   in 1822. Commemorate the legacy of this great poet by watching 'The Last D...
08/07/2023

The Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley died in 1822.
Commemorate the legacy of this great poet by watching 'The Last Days of Shelley,' a video story with immersive sound, narrated by Julian Sands.

313 film production

8 July 2022 marked the 200th anniversary of Percy Bysshe Shelley's death in Italy. To mark the occasion we have teamed up once more with 313 film production ...

Yesterday we had the pleasure to host a fascinating lecture by Dr Omar Miranda on the modernity of Percy Bysshe Shelley....
07/07/2023

Yesterday we had the pleasure to host a fascinating lecture by Dr Omar Miranda on the modernity of Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Thank you Dr Miranda and everyone who took part in the lecture!

 Did you know that the American president Theodore Roosevelt was involved in the creation of the Keats-Shelley House Mus...
05/07/2023



Did you know that the American president Theodore Roosevelt was involved in the creation of the Keats-Shelley House Museum?

The Keats-Shelley Museum opened in 1909 with blessings from the King of Italy, Vittorio Emanuele III, the King of England, Edward VII, and the American president, Theodore Roosevelt.
Roosevelt became involved in the project thanks to his Secretary of State, John Hay, who had also donated $100 for the purchase of the House.
In this letter (first picture) to Robert Underwood Johnson, President Roosevelt expressed his enthusiasm for the project to buy and preserve the building and turn it into a memorial to John Keats.

https://bit.ly/3pAWVwc

Curious to know why Shelley’s ideas are still relevant today?If you are in Rome join us for a lecture by Dr Omar Miranda...
30/06/2023

Curious to know why Shelley’s ideas are still relevant today?
If you are in Rome join us for a lecture by Dr Omar Miranda on Percy Shelley for Our Times on Thursday 6th July at 5 pm.

To book your seat please send an email to [email protected]

https://bit.ly/3CTkd3p

29/06/2023

John Keats- Sonnet: Happy is England! (06:54)- On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer (08:32)- Great Spirits Now on Earth Are Sojourning (10:43)- Endymion: A...

 Our hearts broke when we read the tragic news that Julian Sands had gone missing while on a hike on Mount Baldy, Southe...
28/06/2023



Our hearts broke when we read the tragic news that Julian Sands had gone missing while on a hike on Mount Baldy, Southern California in January. Following months of dedicated searching, we were devastated to learn that Julian has now been confirmed dead. The noted British actor, who played Percy B. Shelley in Ken Russell's movie Gothic (1986), was a dear friend and long-term collaborator of the Keats-Shelley Memorial Association. He authored prefaces for two of the museum's poetry anthologies and recited works by Keats, Shelley and Byron at sold out events many times in our museum. He was also one of our Ambassadors for Keats-Shelley200 and recorded the voice of Shelley in our short immersive film The Last Days of Shelley.

On 13th February 2022 he was interviewed by 'Il messagero' and was asked which poems by Keats and Shelley he loved the most. 'I love much of what they have written and my personal favourites change every day,' he answered. 'But for sure Shelley's "Mont Blanc" is important to me. When I'm not working l spend a lot of my time climbing mountains all over the world and l know first hand the truth of Shelley's words':

—the power is there,
The still and solemn power of many sights,
And many sounds, and much of life and death.

Julian, thank you so much for all you did for us. You will be dearly missed.

https://bit.ly/3Pzw4eE

22/06/2023

 Can you guess which one of our beloved Romantics was the owner of this clock? This handsome gilded brass clock once bel...
21/06/2023


Can you guess which one of our beloved Romantics was the owner of this clock?
This handsome gilded brass clock once belonged to Lord Byron whose name is incised on the base. Decorated with musical figures and swans, the clock includes one of the Romantics favourite symbols, the lyre. The clock has been on display in the museum’s entrance since 2015 when it was donated to the House by Professor Andy Peter Antippas.

Perhaps Byron was inspired by this clock when he composed this passage about time in Childe Harold:
Oh Time! the beautifier of the dead,
Adorner of the ruin, comforter
And only healer when the heart hath bled —
Time! the corrector where our judgements err,
The test of truth, love, — sole philosopher,
For all beside are sophists, from thy thrift,
Which never loses though it doth defer —
Time, the avenger! unto thee I lift
My hands, and eyes, and heart, and crave of thee a gift [...].

https://bit.ly/3XkqzC9

Here are a few photos from last week’s brilliant talk by Dr Renée Schleuter on the subject of Frederick Douglass’ Romant...
20/06/2023

Here are a few photos from last week’s brilliant talk by Dr Renée Schleuter on the subject of Frederick Douglass’ Romantic Italian Pilgrimage. Thank you Dr Renée Schlueter and everyone who joined us at the Keats-Shelley House!

 Did you know that both Keats’s sister and fiancée were named F***y? Today’s highlight from our collection is a portrait...
16/06/2023



Did you know that both Keats’s sister and fiancée were named F***y?

Today’s highlight from our collection is a portrait of John Keats’s sister F***y.
Frances Mary Keats, also known as F***y, was born in 1803. As a girl F***y saw little of her brother who was studying at Enfield school, but in 1817 Keats started to write to her on a regular basis. In his first letter to her he wrote:

My dear F***y — Let us now begin a regular question and answer a little pro and con; letting it interfere as a pleasant method of my coming at your favorite little wants and enjoyments, that I may meet them in a way befitting a brother.
We have been so little together since you have been able to reflect on things…This I feel as a necessity for we ought to become intimately acquainted, in order that I may not only, as you grow up love you as my only Sister, but confide in you as my dearest friend.

F***y treasured her brother’s letters throughout her life. In 1826 she married Valentín de Llanos Gutiérrez, a Spanish writer, translator and politician, who had spent the winter of 1820-1821 in Rome where he was introduced to Keats. Gutierrez spoke to Keats occasionally and is said to have seen him just three days before his death. In 1833 the couple settled in Spain and they had four children, including the painter Juan Llanos y Keats whose painting of his mother F***y now belongs to our collection.

bit.ly/3JdFLLN

Congratulations to all the winners and runners-up in the 32nd annual Keats-Shelley  Poetry Prize for Schools! The ceremo...
14/06/2023

Congratulations to all the winners and runners-up in the 32nd annual Keats-Shelley Poetry Prize for Schools!
The ceremony took place last Friday here at the Keats-Shelley House.

You can read the poems and name of the winners here: https://bit.ly/43V5LDz

A special thanks to all the participants. This year we had almost one thousand entries! See below some highlights of the ceremony.

Don't miss our upcoming event: FINDING FREEDOM IN ROME.A talk by Dr Renée Schlueter on Frederick Douglass’ Romantic Ita...
13/06/2023

Don't miss our upcoming event: FINDING FREEDOM IN ROME.

A talk by Dr Renée Schlueter on Frederick Douglass’ Romantic Italian Pilgrimage, on Thursday 15 June at 5 pm here at the Keats-Shelley House.

Admission is Free but booking is required. Please write to [email protected].

Read more about the event here: https://bit.ly/3P451rr

Don't miss Renée Schlueter's talk on Frederick Douglass’ Romantic Italian Pilgrimage on Thursday 15 June at 5 pm here a...
10/06/2023

Don't miss Renée Schlueter's talk on Frederick Douglass’ Romantic Italian Pilgrimage on Thursday 15 June at 5 pm here at the Keats-Shelley House.

Find out more about the event here: https://bit.ly/3P451rr

Admission is Free but booking is required due to the limited number of seats (write to [email protected]).

 At the end of May or early June 1823, 200 years ago, John Keats’s tombstone was finally erected. In a letter that Josep...
08/06/2023


At the end of May or early June 1823, 200 years ago, John Keats’s tombstone was finally erected. In a letter that Joseph Severn wrote to William Haslam at the beginning of June 1823 he wrote: “I have just put up the Tomb to poor Keats – it has cost me 16£ – but Brown insists on paying half…Our Keats Tomb is simply this – a Greek Lyre in Basso relievo – with only half the Strings – to show his Classical Genius cut off by death before its maturity – the Inscription is this “This Grave contains all that was Mortal of a Young English Poet – who on his death-bed – in the bitterness of his heart – at the malicious power of his enemies – desired these words to be engraven on his Tomb Stone” “Here lies one whose name was writ in Water”.

We don’t know why Keats chose to have only this epitaph on his tombstone. Scholars have several theories as to its meaning, but we always like to ask our visitors what they think, too. So, how would you interpret Keats’ epitaph?

 William Shelley, the son of Mary and Percy Bysshe, died   in 1819. The couple had been living in Rome since March that ...
07/06/2023


William Shelley, the son of Mary and Percy Bysshe, died in 1819. The couple had been living in Rome since March that year, when little William, affectionately known as ‘Willmouse,’ suddenly caught malaria and died prematurely at the age of 3. He was buried in the Non-Catholic Cemetery, not too far from John Keats’s burial. The Shelleys would never recover from their children’s death; besides William, they lost their first child, a two-month premature baby in 1815, and a one-year-old girl, Clara Everina, in 1818. Percy Bysshe felt that his wife had estranged him because Mary fell into a deep depression and found solace only in books and in writing. Once, he wrote in his notebook:

My dearest Mary, wherefore hast thou gone,
And left me in this dreary world alone?
Thy form is here indeed—a lovely one—
But thou art fled, gone down a dreary road
That leads to Sorrow's most obscure abode.
For thine own sake I cannot follow thee
Do thou return for mine.

 On this day in 1818 John Keats wrote to Joseph Severn:My dear Severn,The Doctor says I mustn't go out. I wish such a de...
06/06/2023



On this day in 1818 John Keats wrote to Joseph Severn:

My dear Severn,
The Doctor says I mustn't go out. I wish such a delicious fate would put me in cue to entertain you with a Sonnet or a Pun.
I am
Yours ever
John Keats.

At the time Keats and Severn were only acquaintances having met through common friends. But in the summer of 1820, Keats was told by his doctor that his only chance of recovering from TB was to leave England and travel towards a milder climate. He was hoping that his good friend Charles Brown would accompany him and would never have imagined that Severn would be his travel companion. However, at the time Brown was in the Scottish Highlands, and didn’t receive the letters that Keats had sent him urging him to embark on a trip to Italy. Keats eventually started to prepare himself to leave alone, until his friend William Haslam contacted Severn, who had been awarded a Royal Academy travelling scholarship to Italy, asking him to accompany the poet. Severn generously accepted, nursing Keats until the end. After the death of the poet, he remained in Rome and became an established member of the British community. He moved back to England in 1841 but returned to the Eternal City twenty years later. Severn became British Consul in Rome, remaining here until his death in 1879, preserving Keats's memory through letters and memoirs. Severn was buried in the Non-Catholic Cemetery alongside his friend, Keats.

 To celebrate “Festa della Repubblica,” Italian Republic Day, a national holiday that commemorates the birth of the Ital...
02/06/2023



To celebrate “Festa della Repubblica,” Italian Republic Day, a national holiday that commemorates the birth of the Italian Republic, we’d like to share a fragment of a poem on Italy by Percy Bysshe Shelley and Stanza 42 of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage by Lord Byron:

TO ITALY
As the sunrise to the night,
As the north wind to the clouds,
As the earthquake's fiery flight,
Ruining mountain solitudes,
Everlasting Italy,
Be those hopes and fears on thee.

CHILDE HAROLD, Canto IV. Stanza 42
Italia! oh Italia! thou who hast
The fatal gift of Beauty, which became
A funeral dower of present woes and past,
On thy sweet brow is sorrow ploughed by Shame,
And Annals graved in characters of flame.
Oh, God! that thou wert in thy nakedness
Less lovely or more powerful, and couldst claim
Thy right, and awe the robbers back, who press
To shed thy blood, and drink the tears of thy distress;

Who's excited for the long weekend and Italian Republic Day?We'll be open as normal tomorrow, 2nd June, for Festa della ...
01/06/2023

Who's excited for the long weekend and Italian Republic Day?
We'll be open as normal tomorrow, 2nd June, for Festa della Repubblica, so come and visit us!

Our regular hours are Monday-Saturday 10 a.m.–1 p.m. and 2 p.m.–6 p.m (last entry 5:45 p.m.).

 Today’s highlights from our collection are two busts of John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley by American sculptor Willia...
29/05/2023



Today’s highlights from our collection are two busts of John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley by American sculptor William Wetmore Story.

Story graduated from Harvard College in 1838 and received a law degree from the Harvard Law School, however, he soon abandoned his law career to devote himself to sculpture. He eventually moved to Rome, where his studio was frequented by many intellectuals of the time, such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, James Russell Lowell, and Henry James.

His most famous sculpture, Cleopatra, (1858) was used by Hawthorne as the work of the fictional artist in his novel The Marble Faun (1860). Story's other famous work, which was also his last major work prior to his death, The Angel of Grief or The Weeping Angel, was a sculpture he created to memorialise his wife. It can still be seen at the Non-Catholic Cemetery in Rome. The monument has inspired several replicas including the one located at Stanford University.

Story remained in Italy for the rest of his life and died in 1895. He is buried together with his wife, Emelyn Story, in the Non-Catholic Cemetery.

In 1910 and 1915, Story's daughter-in-law presented the Keats-Shelley House with a number of important letters belonging to her father-in-law, as well as the portrait busts of Keats and Shelley. The two poets had become popular subjects thanks to their growing popularity. Originally assumed to be made of terracotta, during restoration work in 2020 it was revealed that they are plaster casts painted to look like clay.

 In May 1819, Percy Bysshe Shelley started writing the tragedy “The Cenci”. The plot was based on the true story of the ...
24/05/2023


In May 1819, Percy Bysshe Shelley started writing the tragedy “The Cenci”. The plot was based on the true story of the Italian Cenci family, one of the noblest and richest families of Rome, in 1599. From this tragic story of an abusive father came the heroic figure of the young daughter, Beatrice Cenci, who was celebrated by the people of Rome as a symbol of strength and resistance. When writing a review of the drama after seeing a production of “The Cenci” at the Grand Theatre, Islington, in 1886, Oscar Wilde wrote that: “no one has more clearly understood than Shelley the mission of the dramatist and the meaning of the drama.”

📸 Image of Beatrice Cenci courtesy of Barberini Corsini Gallerie Nazionali: Ginevra Cantofoli, Donna con turbante, 1650 ca., oil on canvas, Palazzo Barberini.

 Did you know that in his early school years, Keats was not a brilliant student?Keats was a pupil at Enfield School in M...
22/05/2023



Did you know that in his early school years, Keats was not a brilliant student?

Keats was a pupil at Enfield School in Middlesex between 1803 and 1811. As a young boy he was famous for his ungovernable temper and for his prowess as a fighter. As he grew older, however, he developed a passion for reading, and after the death of his parents he benefited greatly from the liberal atmosphere that the headmaster, John Clarke, cultivated at Enfield School. The building was demolished in the Victorian period, but the fine Georgian portico was preserved and later re-erected in the basement of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Here is a pencil drawing of the school which was done in 1876 by artist Mario Gigliucci and is now part of our collection.

Read more here: https://bit.ly/3BMSpgz

  Do you recognise this portrait of Lord Byron? This portrait painting, currently on display in our Salone, is quite an ...
18/05/2023



Do you recognise this portrait of Lord Byron?

This portrait painting, currently on display in our Salone, is quite an unusual depiction of Byron, and perhaps a more realistic one.
Byron sat for Richard Westall, RA, in 1813, when he was twenty-five. Westall painted different versions of the poet’s portrait, and this one was apparently appreciated by Byron precisely for the artist’s realism. Writing in his journal, he recorded: ‘I happen to know this portrait was not a flatterer, but dark and stern, – even as black as the mood in which my mind was scorching last July when I sat for it. All the others of me – like most portraits whatsoever – are, of course, more agreeable than nature.’ Following his portrait paintings, Westall was also employed by Byron’s publisher, John Murray to illustrate the 1819 edition of Byron’s Childe Harold.

Do you have a favourite portrait of Byron?

Find out more here: https://bit.ly/459Re8r

Anne Isabella Milbanke, also known as Lady Byron, Lord Byron’s wife, was born   in 1792. Although, she is mostly remembe...
17/05/2023

Anne Isabella Milbanke, also known as Lady Byron, Lord Byron’s wife, was born in 1792. Although, she is mostly remembered for her tumultuous marriage to Lord Byron, which lasted only one year, she was also involved in educational and prison reform and in the abolition of slavery. Anne Isabella had an interest in theology and mathematics and her daughter, Ada Lovelace, Byron’s only legitimate child, was one of the first computer programmers in history.

 In May 1819 John Keats composed ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ and ‘Ode to a Nightingale.’ Those were not the only great Odes h...
11/05/2023



In May 1819 John Keats composed ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ and ‘Ode to a Nightingale.’ Those were not the only great Odes he produced in that year as he also wrote others such as ‘Ode on Melancholy,’ ‘Ode to Psyche,’ and ‘Ode on Indolence.’

Which one is your favourite ode by Keats?

  in 1820 John Keats’s ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ was published for the first time in The Indicator. Did you know that K...
10/05/2023

in 1820 John Keats’s ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ was published for the first time in The Indicator. Did you know that Keats got inspiration for the name of his ballad from the namesake French poem on courtly love by Alain Chartier?

[Images:
- Arthur Hughes, 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci,' oil on canvas, 1863;
- Walter T. Crane, 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci,' oil on canvas, 1865;
- John William Waterhouse, 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci,' oil on canvas, 1893;
- Henry Meynell Rheam, 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci,' watercolor on paper, 1901;
- Frank Dicksee, 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci,' oil on canvas, c. 1901;
- Frank Cadogan Cowper, 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci,' oil on canvas, 1926]

 This is an original life-mask of John Keats. The mask was made by Benjamin Robert Haydon in December 1816 at the reques...
09/05/2023



This is an original life-mask of John Keats. The mask was made by Benjamin Robert Haydon in December 1816 at the request of Keats himself. During that same month the poet had become a publicly certified apothecary, but he decided to abandon his medical career to completely dedicate himself to poetry. The cast then may be testament to Keats’s desire to create his poetical legacy by preserving his image. As photography had not been invented yet, the only way to save images was through portraiture.Having one’s face cast was a slow and tough process and required patience from the sitter. Haydon once described the preparations as ‘being something like those for cutting off a man’s head’. Life-masks are liable to distortion over the years, but Keats’s sister, F***y, after seeing the mask said that it was a perfect copy of the features of her brother.

https://bit.ly/3BsLlWt

🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧In honour of King Charles who's been our patron for the past 20 years, tomorrow, on the day of the coronation we w...
05/05/2023

🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧
In honour of King Charles who's been our patron for the past 20 years, tomorrow, on the day of the coronation we will stream the ceremony through BBC Sounds from 10.45 a.m. until 3.30 p.m. and we will also serve tea and sweets between 2-3 p.m. in the garden outside our shop. Come along to celebrate.

[Images: King Charles during a visit to the Keats-Shelley House in 2003 and our garden behind our gift shop]

🇮🇹🇮🇹🇮🇹
In onore di Re Carlo, che è stato il nostro patrono negli ultimi venti anni, domani, nel giorno dell'incoronazione, trasmetteremo la cerimonia in streaming attraverso BBC Sounds dalle 10.45 alle 15.30 e serviremo anche tè e dolci tra le 14.00 e le 15.00 nel giardino sul retro del nostro negozio. Vi aspettiamo.

[Immagini: il nostro giardino sul retro del nostro gift shop e Re Carlo durante una visita alla Keats-Shelley House nel 2003].

 Did you know that John Keats wasn’t the only writer and doctor (Keats was almost an apothecary) who lived in this House...
04/05/2023



Did you know that John Keats wasn’t the only writer and doctor (Keats was almost an apothecary) who lived in this House?

The Swedish doctor and writer Axel Munthe lived in the House, in the very same bedroom where Keats died, between 1883 and 1902. This was not the only aspect that the doctor shared with the poet, both were born on 31 October although Munthe was born 62 years later in 1857. Munthe is best known as author of The Story of San Michele, his bestselling memoir which was published in 1929 and which sold millions of copies all over the world.
In the memoir he remembered with melancholy Keats’s bedroom which had later been his own as well:

“I do not know if the Keats Society who bought the house when I left it has put in new doors in the room Keats had died in and where I might have died myself had my number been up. If the old door is still there, there is also a small bullet-hole in the left corner at about the height of my head, filled with stucco and painted over by myself.”

Unfortunately the door is not there anymore, but the ceiling, the floor and fire-place are still pieces of the original structure of the House.

Pictured here is Munthe outside of the building that is now known as the Keats-Shelley House.

Find out more here: https://bit.ly/3LTfm7K

Enjoy the 1 May National Holiday with a special guided tour of the Keats-Shelley House. There will be two tours availabl...
28/04/2023

Enjoy the 1 May National Holiday with a special guided tour of the Keats-Shelley House. There will be two tours available on the day, one in Italian at 12pm and one in English at 4pm. The tour will be included in the cost of the museum ticket (€6). Advanced booking is not required but tours will be on a first come first served basis due to the limited number of seats available. Come along and enjoy the tour!

 This tortoise shell clasped dance card contains seven ivory sheets including portraits of both Shelley and Byron. Other...
26/04/2023



This tortoise shell clasped dance card contains seven ivory sheets including portraits of both Shelley and Byron. Other sheets are decorated with trumpets, doves and a poem dedicated to either a “Thomas Frame” or “Thomas Fraine” dated 1832.
Balls were one of the main social events in the 19th century and dance cards were an essential ornament for ladies to have. The materials used to make them depended on the economic and marital status of the owner. The set of cards also included a pencil, usually hanging by a cord or ribbon that allowed the owner to wear the accessory on the wrist, and sometimes a diary, a purse, and a prayer book.

Find out more here:
https://bit.ly/3oMiE3x

   Did you know that during World II part of the collection of the Keats-Shelley House was almost at risk of being destr...
25/04/2023



Did you know that during World II part of the collection of the Keats-Shelley House was almost at risk of being destroyed under bombs?

In December 1941 the Keats-Shelley House entered its “underground period” assuming an anonymous obscurity even in its outward appearance. The external plaques were removed and the House became just another part of the architecture of the Spanish Steps.
The following year, two small boxes were sent to the Abbey of Montecassino, located between Rome and Naples. Their contents contained the most precious collection items, including the famous last drawing of Keats by Severn, two first editions of Keats - Endymion and Lamia, Keats’s own drawing of the Sosibios Vase, locks of Keats’s and Shelley’s hair, and letters of Shelley, Byron, Leigh Hunt, Trelawny, Mary Shelley and the Brownings. The boxes were sealed but were left unlabelled and it was this omission which ultimately saved them from German inspection.
In October, 1943 the Abbey’s archivist Don Mauro Inguanez, fearing that a serious battle was imminent, moved the treasures of the Keats-Shelley House to his own cell and crated them with his own possessions. He then sent his belongings to Rome by lorry where the boxes were collected a month later by then Curator of the House, Vera Cacciatore.. The Abbey was sadly destroyed by allied bombing just a few months later.
Following the arrival of the Allies in Rome in June 1944, the House was at once reopened and the boxes of manuscripts unsealed in the presence of the British and American Ambassadors.

  199 years ago, Lord Byron died from rheumatic fever in Missolonghi, Greece.Byron was able to record his own essence in...
19/04/2023

199 years ago, Lord Byron died from rheumatic fever in Missolonghi, Greece.
Byron was able to record his own essence in Canto IV of his poem, ‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’:

But I have lived, and have not lived in vain:
My mind may lose its force, my blood its fire,
And my frame perish even in conquering pain,
But there is that within me which shall tire
Torture and Time, and breathe when I expire [.]

 Did you know that amongst our collection there are locks of hair?Below Joseph Severn’s famous painting of Shelley at th...
11/04/2023



Did you know that amongst our collection there are locks of hair?

Below Joseph Severn’s famous painting of Shelley at the Baths of Caracalla there is a case displaying locks of hair from P.B. Shelley, Leigh Hunt, John Keats, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and John Milton. As bizarre as it might seem to us today, in the nineteenth century it was very common for friends to exchange locks of hair as tokens of affection. After someone died these became precious keepsakes, or, if from a famous head, prized relics, because hair was a very concrete reminder of people’s physical appearances. During the Victorian era it was common in Britain and America to find items, such as bracelets, earrings, or embroidery made from human hair. It is fair to say that people were fascinated by it!

Find out more about the hair locks in our collection here:
https://bit.ly/40MCLwB

 Today we’re celebrating William Wordsworth’s birthday. He was born   in 1770. In celebration of Wordsworth, here is Per...
07/04/2023



Today we’re celebrating William Wordsworth’s birthday. He was born in 1770. In celebration of Wordsworth, here is Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem ‘To Wordsworth:’

Poet of Nature, thou hast wept to know
That things depart which never may return:
Childhood and youth, friendship and love’s first glow,
Have fled like sweet dreams, leaving thee to mourn.
These common woes I feel. One loss is mine
Which thou too feel’st, yet I alone deplore.
Thou wert as a lone star, whose light did shine
On some frail bark in winter’s midnight roar:
Thou hast like to a rock-built refuge stood
Above the blind and battling multitude:
In honoured poverty thy voice did weave
Songs consecrate to truth and liberty,—
Deserting these, thou leavest me to grieve,
Thus having been, that thou shouldst cease to be.

Did you know the Romantic poets of the second generation had a love-hate relationship with Wordsworth?
They admired Wordsworth’s initial poetry but felt betrayed when his values started changing in his mid-30s.

What is your opinion on Wordsworth? Do you have a favourite poem by him?

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Piazza Di Spagna, 26
Rome
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Discover Rome’s hidden Romantic secret

Situated at the right foot of the Spanish Steps, just a few steps away from Spagna metro station, the Keats-Shelley House is a museum dedicated to the English Romantic poets, who were spellbound by the Eternal City.

26 Piazza di Spagna is most famous for being the final dwelling place of John Keats, who died here in 1821, aged just 25, and to this day Keats’s bedroom is preserved as a shrine to his tragic story and extraordinary talent.

Displayed through a chain of beautiful rooms, the collection contains a great many treasures and curiosities associated with the lives and works of the Romantic poets, as well as one of the finest libraries of Romantic literature in the world; now numbering more than 8,000 volumes.

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Commenti

Museo bellissimo situato in una splendida cornice. Si avverte la sensazione che lo spirito di Keats aleggi tuttora nelle stanze. Visita che consiglio vivamente associandola magari alla visita del cimitero acattolico dove il poeta riposa. Sono i posti di Roma in cui si respira quell'atmosfera "british " che tanto amo
Ho un fantastico ricordo di questo sito culturale,visitato in giovane età, con la gita scolastica,ritornerò sicuramente !
I walk up the stairs, give the girl my three Euros. I look at the sketch Elizabeth Browning did of Shelley. In the bedroom I look out the window to the view of the Spanish Steps. I hear a horse carriage pass by, and people who come and go from the Lord Byron Tea House, talking of Michelangelo. House. I look for stains of Keats' phlegm on the wall paper. I turn around. I'm startled by someone wearing in a Frankenstein mask.
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