Musical Wednesdays: Santa Croce in Gerusalemme

Every Wednesday we review something musical about Roma. This week, we show you the often overlooked music museum inside the Basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme. Its actually called the Museo Nazionale degli Strumenti Musicali (National Museum of Musical Instruments) and is a great place to visit if you are interested in music, history, art, or just want to escape this rainy weather for a while!

The museum is one of the best of its kind. It has over 1,000 instruments from all over the world, and from periods ranging from the late-Hellenistic period to the early 20th century. Most of the instruments were collected by the late opera singer Evangelista Gorga.

One of the museums most important pieces is an extremely rare piano made by the legendary Bartolomeo Cristofori in 1722. For those of you who might not know, it generally agreed that Bartolomeo Cristofori actually invented the piano (or pianoforte, as we say in Italian) for the Medici family at the beginning of the 1700's.

Another important piece is the Barberini harp, a priceless and unique instrument that used to belong to the famous Barberini family. The harp in the painting above by Giovanni Lanfranco (titled Allegoria della Musica, 1647) is the same one you can see in person at the museum!

The museum is located inside the Basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, and is open from Tuesday to Sunday from 8:30am-7:30pm. Admission is 5 euro. You can't help but admire the beauty of the Basilica itself; it is truly a work of art. Check it out at night too! TramTracks runs right past it on our Monday tours of Roma's best monuments.