Piazza di Spagna, 26
00187, Roma
www.keats-shelley-house.org
Tel: 06.6784235 Fax: 06.6784167 E-mail: info@keats-shelley-house.org

www.keats-shelley-house.org

In 1907, the house in which John Keats died was finally bought outright for the Keats-Shelley Memorial Association. This is the story of how that came about.

In 1903 the rooms in which Keats and Severn had lived were occupied by a pair of lively and appreciative American women, both writers, Mrs James Walcott Haslehurst and her mother who spent much time permitting the curious to see where Keats had spent his last days. The house was in a dreadful condition and the women wanted to buy it so that it could be preserved as a shrine but did not have enough money. In February 1903, Robert Underwood Johnson, an American poet, walked down the Spanish Steps to look at the house in which Keats had died, noticed its bedraggled appearance, entered and made enquiries. He called together a dozen of the American literati resident in Rome, one prominent Englishman, and their spouses. The Englishman, Rennell Rodd, who later saved the graves in the cemetery in Testaccio, was a poet as well as a brilliant diplomat. He took the Chair of the meeting. The Americans present were Robert Underwood Johnson and his wife, Norman Hapgood, Agnes Repplier, James Herbert Morse and his wife, Martha Gilbert Dickinson, and H. Nelson Gay. Johnson proposed that committees in the United States, England and Italy should raise money for the project. Rennell Rodd led the drive in the United Kingdom, Johnson in the United States and Nelson Gay in Italy. They worked hard, with support from President Roosevelt and King Edward VII, and after 3 years their efforts were rewarded.

An option to buy the house was acquired and taken up on the 30th of December 1906 by a cash payment of $14,000 and a mortgage of $8,000, The formal dedication by the King of Italy, Vittorio Emanuele III, took place on 3 April 1909 in the presence of descendants of the poets; of Lloyd Griscom, the American Ambassador; of Sir Rennell Rodd and Rudyard Kipling for the United Kingdom; of Adolpho de Bosis, a young Italian Shellyan, and of Nelson Gay.

It now contains one of the finest libraries of Romantic literature in the world as well as a unique collection of manuscripts, paintings and memorabilia. In addition to being a Museum and Library the House plays an important part in the cultural life of Rome organising lectures, poetry recitals and gala events.

Among those who later occupied rooms in the House was the Swedish writer and doctor Axel Munthe who lived here at the end of the nineteenth century. An edition of his celebrated work The Story of San Michele together with a note on his life and friendship with the great Italian actress Eleonora Duse can be seen in the Salone.

The House in war time

In December 1941, on the breakdown of relations between Germany and its allies and America, the Keats House entered its “underground period”, assuming an anonymous obscurity even in its outward appearance. The external plaques were removed and the House became another anonymous feature of the architecture of the scalinata.

Though the celebrated library of 10,000 volumes remained in place, two small boxes were sent to the Abbey of Montecassino on December 14 1942. Their contents included 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 holograph 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.

Following the allied landings and Anglo-American advance Cassino became the centre of German resistance. On October 14 1943 evacuation of the Abbey was ordered and a few days later the Goering division removed the archives. The archivist, with great courage, contrived to keep the German officials away from the secret cupboard in which were the hidden treasures of the Keats-Shelley House, and he subsequently removed these to his own cell and crated them with his own possessions. On October 30th the archivist’s belongings travelled by lorry for Rome and one month later the Curator of the House collected the boxes and returned them to their home in Piazza di Spagna.

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. The House was crowded with soldiers who came to reflect and to recover themselves. The father of one of these soldiers wrote later that his son had found there serenity and strength amid a sorrow like that of Ruth:

“when sick for home
She stood in tears amid the alien corn”

“Ode to a Nightingale” John Keats

ROME AND THE ROMANTICS

(ITALIAN)

The ‘Casina Rossa’ or Little Red House on the Spanish Steps where John Keats died on February 23, 1821, is part of Roman folklore.

For generations the Piazza di Spagna has been for British and American visitors, the very heart of Rome. Budding architects, painters, musicians and poets all lodged here. Both Shelley and Byron, at different times, rented rooms in the quarter. The Steps were constructed between 1721-25 by the architect Francesco de Sanctis, to serve as a dramatic approach to the Egyptian obelisk and the Church of ‘Trinità dei Monti’ on the ‘Pincio’. They overlook the famous fountain of the ‘Barcaccia’, or long boat, designed by Bernini’s father, Pietro, for the centre of the Piazza. Beyond lies one of the finest Baroque vistas in Rome, stretching south-eastwards over the Palazzo Borghese and across the Tiber to Castel Sant’Angelo, where Cellini had once manned the guns, and beyond that again to the silver green dome of St. Peter’s and the dark walls of the ‘Città del Vaticano’.

Keats arrived in Rome with his artist friend Joseph Severn in November 1820. Although just 25 years old he already knew he was suffering from tuberculosis but English doctors had pronounced that only the Mediterranean sunshine might save him. For three weeks Keats appeared to recover. He managed to walk in the city and even rode on the Pincio where he noticed Princess Bonaparte, sister of Napoleon, driving past in her carriage.

However, on December 10, he suffered a severe relapse from which he was not to recover. For the next ten tragic weeks Severn seldom left the poet’s side. He cooked for him, nursed him and even prayed for him.

Keats’ sufferings were further aggravated by the torment of his unfulfilled love for Fanny Brawne. He could not even bear to see her handwriting. Keats never opened the letters Fanny sent to him in Rome. For hours the young poet lay gazing at the pale blue rosettes between the ceiling rafters of his little bedroom. Severn recorded Keats’ impression of the ceiling the day before the romantic poet died:

‘He assured me that he already seemed to feel the flowers growing over him.’

Shelley and his family were living in Pisa in the Winter of 1820-21, and Keats promised he would visit them in the Spring. Shelley, too had lived in Rome; he wrote “Prometheus Unbound” in 1819 in the ruins of the Roman baths of Caracalla. Keats’ tragic death inspired Shelley’s “Adonais”. But little more than a year later, in July 1822, Shelley was drowned while sailing off the coast of Viareggio. Shelley’s body was only identified by a copy of Keats’ poems in his jacket pocket. Both Shelley and Keats are now buried in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome.

In 1903 no.26 Piazza di Spagna was threatened by demolition. It was to be replaced by a modern hotel. Eight American writers in Rome met to discuss a project for purchasing by popular subscription the House where Keats died and for installing a permanent memorial to the Romantic Poets. By great good fortune, the Keats-Shelley Memorial Association was formed in 1907 with support from King Edward VII, President Theodore Roosevelt and King Vittorio Emanuele III, who opened the House to the Public on April 3, 1909. At the ceremony Sir Rennell Rodd, the British Ambassador, announced the determination of the Association of Committees ‘to guard the House against all possibility of further desecration by dedicating it to the memory of the two great poets whose names are indissolubly associated with Rome and Italy.’

During the past eighty years the House has survived two World Wars and threat of bankruptcy. In that time treasures and relics of Keats, Shelley Byron, and other English poets who were lovers of Italy, have accumulated in the House: in the large salone is the finest Library of English Romantic Literature on the Continent; there are letters of Byron, Shelley and Trelawny; Keats’ death mask and an urn containing a fragment of bone from Shelley’s body. Other acquisitions include a wax mask worn by Byron at the Carnival in Ravenna in 1820, and a silver scallop-shell reliquary framing, on one side a lock of Milton’s hair and on the other a lock of Elizabeth Barett Browning’s hair.
The Keats-Shelley Memorial Association is a registered self-funded charity whose aim is to promote the knowledge of the English Romantic poets John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley who lived and died in the ‘Paradise of Exiles’. To survive, the Keats House relies on donations and sponsorship, as well as on the thousands of tourists and students, lovers of literature and of the Romantic poets, who visit the House every year. In addition to being a Museum and Library, the Keats House plays an important part in the cultural life of Rome, organising lectures, an annual Poetry Competition for schools, poetry recitals and gala events.