This is a real Gipsoteca founded in 1892. It was initially arranged in a palace in Testaccio then in 1925 was moved to the Istituto San Michele and since 1935 was moved to its current location at the Città Universitaria. The beautiful collection consists of twelve hundred and sixty casts of classical roman and greek arranged in over fifty rooms. Attention, you will not find medieval or renaissance art like many other european plaster casts collections. Here casts are so many and the most important classical works of art are on display. There is a good light even if some galleries are a little dark during the afternoon and cloudy days. There is very calm ambience in the afternoon and it is one of the few museum in Rome where you can draw in a quiet, being a place of study for the university students. It’s located off the tourist track, but if you plan to visit it not so far you will find also the Basilica of San Lorenzo Fuori le Mura and the Monumental Cemetery of Verano.

Over two hundred of big, medium, and small plaster sculptures and hundreds of paintings and graphics. After the recent restoring the two large studios, the gallery and the modelling studio on the ground floor are returned impressive evocative as before. This place is worth a relaxing visit. Few visitors, quiet atmosphere, ideal for drawing with peace of your mind.

Open from tuesday to sunday  –  from 9:30 to 19:30 (last entry 18:30)

FREE ENTRANCE

Via Pasquale Stanislao Mancini, 20   00196 Roma

Metro A: Flaminio

It is a Museum House were the sculptor worked and lived in the middle of the green garden of Villa Borghese. In front of the access facade there are bronze statues, depicting an Alpine and his mule.
On the ground floor and in the lower floor rooms which display the works, including plaster models, copies and originals, by Pietro Canonica; on the mezzanine floor there is the guest room and the Studio, this one preserved as well as when he worked.
Upstairs are the master bedroom, the dining room and the living room. Natural lights and suggestive atmospheres enrich the visit

 

Viale Pietro Canonica (Piazza di Siena) 2 – 00197 Roma

from Tuesday to Sunday
October – May 10:00 – 16:00
June – September 13.00 – 19.00

Metro A: Flaminio

One of the rarest examples present here in Rome of ancient sculptor’s studio. This was the Studio di Scultura of Antonio Canova, who sold it in 1818 to his pupil Adamo Tadolini, who continued the business with his son Scipione. It is a cast collections tour destination you can’t missed. The collection is rich of original plaster model and casts. Unfortunately, after the restoration was allowed to be used as private bar-restaurant and is very difficult to make a quiet visit as we would like. The bar is always full of tourists and locals at the tables with greatest risk to the delicate plaster! To visit it is best to choose a between meals hours. It may happen that the owners are rude to museum visitors, but if you take a coffee or a cold drink they will be happy to allow you the visit…

Anyway remember that the visit is your right, this is a museum first of all!

Remember that there is an upper floor very interesting and completely original. The building is very attractive also from the outside with a beautiful skylight roof.

FREE (…) ENTRANCE

Via del Babuino, 150 A,B   00187 Roma

Metro A: Piazza di Spagna / Flaminio

An extraordinary Cast Collection is located inside the prestigious residence of the Academy of France in Villa Medici in Rome, it is small but extraordinary and ask for a visit. The collection consists in a selection of great historical value plaster casts, since the tradition of roman and french mold makers in the villa at the service of the sculptors, winners of the Rome Prize, is very old.

Only during recent years the collection of plaster casts was really enhanced by the creation of present Gipsotheque within one of the beautiful Sculptor Ateliers inside the villa’s garden and a rich deposit, not far away, recently restored.

You can book a guided tour of the Gipsotheque, including along the visit itinerary of the Villa and Gardens at this LINK.

Viale Trinità dei Monti, 1   00187 Roma

Metro A: Spagna

Minibus lines 117, station Trinità dei Monti

It’s a very singular museum. Raised from the union of three plasters collections related to the history of the Roman Empire made ​​since 1911 with didactic intention, cultural and political propaganda. Here you can find a lot of casts of statues, inscriptions and monumental architecture. What will make you love the visit, above all, are two extraordinary things: the plaster cast of the Trajan Column made in 1864 by the roman moldmaker’s family Malpieri (owned by the Vatican Museums and here on permanent loan from 1951) and then the model of the city of ancient Rome (at IV century a. C.) in 1:250 scale  by Italo Gismondi made by the mold maker Pierino di Carlo. The awesome plaster model deals with the total surface of a whole room.

In the surrounding area you can visit the Prehistoric and Ethnographic Museum or admire the architecture of the neighborhood EUR built for the Universal Exhibition of Rome during the ’30s.

CURRENTLY CLOSED

Piazza G. Agnelli,10   00144 Roma

Metro B: Eur Fermi