Journal 2

As I returned to the Piazza de Spangna I head towards the Keats Shelly Museum. This place has significance to me because it came up a few times during my groups research of the piazza. The museum is what use to be an apartment complex where John Keats and Mary Shelly’s husband lived while in Rome. Immediately entering the place I was already amazed. When purchasing my ticket to enter the museum, the cashier caught my attention.

She spoke English fairly well, better than anyone we or at least I had encountered so far while in Rome. As I bought my ticket she spoke to Guerry and me about what expect upstairs and offered us a guide. I then thought to break a fifty since in Italy and probably most of Europe, large denominations are frowned upon. She said she didn’t have enough to break my fifty, but then she gave me some useful advice. She told me that the next time I take money out the ATM I should hit other amounts and take out multiples of 20 in order to get lower then 50’s. Her co-worker chimed in and spoke with a British accent and expressed that’s how “us brits” beat the system. At that point I realized that the workers were mostly English and that’s why they spoke impressive English.

As we head upstairs we entered the starting room and a woman came and informed us of what each room was and that we can sit in the starting room as long as we like and not to touch anything in the rooms. Guerry decided to sit down before we toured the rest of the house. I decided to just walk around the room and read the plaques of information that were around the room. As I walked around reading I learned of the history of the house. I then read that President Roosevelt was involved in preserving the house and making it into a museum. This surprised me because that suggested an American influence, which I didn’t feel when in the museum. I assumed that this was governed by England especially since the British tearoom is just down the street from the museum, and the workers are all British.

I then entered a small room off to the side, which was said to be the original entrance to the apartment. It had some information on Byron. There were some letters and pictures in the room. There was a window that over looked right onto the Spanish Steps. It was pretty cool to see them the way, these writers did back when they wee alive. As I head back to the main room Guerry was ready to walk around the house.

We proceeded to go to the other rooms where there were more displays of pictures and letters. This time they were related to Keats himself. Most of the letters were correspondence between him and other note worthy literary figures of the time. Some were just letters to his family. On display was what is called a life mask. Apparently before Keats died, one of his friends made a mask of his face and it is said to look very much like him. I then read about tuberculosis on one of the plaques and learned that it was a common and almost untreatable illness in Keats time.

In the final room was John Keats Room. It is hear that he spent his last days, with his housemate Shelly. They have reconstructed his bed to the way it would have looked like back in Keats day. This was done because apparently the pop declared that anyone who died of tuberculosis must have his or her things burned. By the way his bed was small. Overall I left the museum feeling sad for John Keats because he died so young and almost as soon as he got to Rome. It was definitely tragic.