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Giuseppe Giusti, poet and man of letters in the Tuscany of the Grand Dukes, was born in this house at Monsummano Terme in 1809. Plain and severe, with the main entrance situated directly on the ground floor, the house was built by his paternal grandfather between 1791 and 1793. A small garden, much smaller than it was originally, surrounds the building, and still shows traces of what was probably its 19th century lay-out, including a Neo-Classical well. The rooms inside are decorated with paintings in tempera, while the subject matter is always in some way connected to the actual use of the rooms. In fact the entrance hall contains landscapes that create a pleasant outdoor atmosphere, while the rooms that were once the studio, bedrooms and private chapel are decorated with scenes taken from classical and religious texts. The original furniture has been concentrated on the first floor, so as to give a feeling of rooms still being lived in. The second floor, instead, contains a route that reconstructs and illustrates the life and work of Giuseppe Giusti. The various documents found inside the house have been grouped together here alongside reproductions of others preserved in the local Libraries and Archives. Ten years after first being opened, the museum route has been further enriched by the room of Italian 19th century poetry, a suggestive environment that offers visitors the chance to listen to verses by some of the most important poets of the 19th century. The voices are accompanied by an image that moves around the entire room, forcing the eye to follow it, while the mind is absorbed by the words and their fascinating meaning.
