On Via Ruga, in the centre of Fratta Polesine, a country villa looks out over a tree-filled garden. This is the house where Giacomo Matteotti lived with his family, now a house museum. Every room keeps the traces of a private life that the history of Italy swept away.
An 18th-century villa
The building already appears in the Catastico veneto, the Venetian land survey of 1775. It has the three-part layout of a country villa: a central hall, rooms on either side, a staircase linking the floors. In the first decades of the 20th century it was enlarged with a loggia and a decorated concrete terrace. It was bought by Giacomo’s father, Girolamo Matteotti.
Giacomo lived here with his wife Velia Titta and their children Giancarlo, Matteo and Isabella. After his murder in 1924, his mother Isabella Garzarolo, his widow and the children went on living here. His body lay in state in the central hall. The house became a place of memory long before it became a museum.
From the 2004 law to national monument
The Casa Museo was established by Law 255 of 2004. In 2017 Law 213 raised it to the status of national monument. It belongs to the Accademia dei Concordi of Rovigo, through a bequest by Matteotti’s children, and is run by the Comune (municipality) of Fratta Polesine.
A first conservation and museum project, by Massarente Architettura, took place between 2006 and 2009. For the centenary of the murder, in 2024, the house was restored again and the route was rethought from scratch. The project, promoted by the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Padova e Rovigo, is curated by Luca Molinari, with displays designed by the studio 120grammi.
Three floors and a black iron sheet
The common thread is a sheet of black iron. According to the museum, it evokes Matteotti’s blunt character, which earned him the nickname “Tempesta” (Storm), and the violent intrusion of the news of his murder into the life of the house.
On the ground floor the sheets form four windows on the changing Polesine and the beginning of his political career. On the first floor they become caskets holding his travels and his ties with a distant family. Under the roof they trace an oval that places the visitor at the centre. A luminous slit retraces his last speech, the suspicions about his death, the discovery of his body and an Italy in transformation.
One of the most moving moments is listening to Matteotti’s last speech in Parliament, on 30 May 1924, a few days before his death. Videos, sounds and images accompany the whole route.
Outside, the garden is as much a part of the memory of the place as the house. In 2018 a survey by the agricultural technical school “Ottavio Munerati” counted 51 plants of 24 different species.
