Casa Museo Giovanni Verga

The Casa Museo Giovanni Verga is a preserved house at Via Sant'Anna 8 in the Civita quarter of Catania, Sicily, where the novelist Giovanni Verga (1840-1922) lived and died. Verga is the leading figure of Italian verismo, the realist literary movement, and the author of I Malavoglia and Mastro-don Gesualdo, works that portray the lives of Sicilian fishermen and rural families. The museum keeps the rooms largely as the writer left them, with his study, library, furniture, books and personal belongings, so visitors step into an upper-middle-class Catanian home of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The study and library are the central rooms, with the desk and shelves that show how Verga worked, and period furnishings give a sense of domestic life. Admission was reported at about EUR 4 (~$5) for adults and about EUR 2 (~$2) reduced, with EUR 1 for residents of Catania province; the telephone number is +39 095 7150598 and hours should be confirmed there, as none is listed here. A visit takes 30 to 45 minutes, and the museum is small and quiet, with few visitors at most times. Interest in the museum is highest among those who know Verga's novels, and a short introduction to his work beforehand adds a great deal, as labels and guides are mainly in Italian. Photographers can capture the study and the library, subject to the museum's rules. The house is a short walk from Castello Ursino and the Museo Civico Belliniano, so it combines easily with a day of museums in the southern part of the historic centre. Weekday mornings are the quietest.