Zeffirelli Museum
A journey through sets, costumes and masterpieces by a master of cinema and theater
The Zeffirelli Museum is located in Piazza San Firenze in Florence, inside the San Firenze Complex, and it contains more than 300 works including set design sketches, drawings and costumes that retrace the career of one of the world's most famous opera directors.
The first rooms in the museum are dedicated to the two figures who most influenced Franco Zeffirelli's artistic education. On display in the first room are set designs created by Salvador Dalí and Zeffirelli himself for several productions directed by master filmmaker Luchino Visconti. Next, there is an immersive room dedicated to Maria Callas, in which visitors can relive the most significant moments of four operas that emerged from the collaboration between the famous soprano and the film director.
Continuing through the exhibition, there are two rooms that narrate Zeffirelli's work in drama theater. The journey starts with the works of Shakespeare, through the Comédie Française and Schiller's Romantic theater, to the great Italian authors such as Verga, De Filippo and Pirandello.
In Room 6, which closes the first wing of the museum, you can see a 30-minute video offering a roundup of Zeffirelli’s career, retraced through some of his most acclaimed theatrical productions and especially clips from his films.
Before entering the second wing of the museum, there is a space reserved for the re-enactment of a documentary Zeffirelli made in 1966, telling the story of the tragic days when a flood devastated Florence.
Then we find ourselves in the beating heart of the space: opera.
The materials displayed in the various rooms - sketches and costumes, models, rehearsal and stage photographs - allow us to follow the evolution of Zeffirelli's stage art and compare different productions of the same opera.
Room 13 contains an accurate reconstruction of Zeffirelli's Studio: family portraits, works by artists Lila de Nobili and Piero Tosi, who were linked to Zeffirelli by their deep friendship, the first landscapes he painted himself at school, photographs with dedications by friends and collaborators and books.
Another impressive section is the Inferno Room, dedicated to the project for a film adaptation of Dante's Divine Comedy, which was never made.
The subsequent rooms illustrate the director's different cinema genres, from films based on operas to historical films, autobiographical stories and Shakespearean adaptations.
The exhibition ends with a tribute to Piero Tosi, costume designer extraordinaire and longtime friend of Zeffirelli, with whom the maestro shared his formative years, early professional experiences and numerous theater and film successes.
