When we think of Franco Zeffirelli, we envision the director of captivating period films and grand theatrical productions, enriched with stunning sets. We rarely pause to consider that the set designer for Zeffirelli’s works was almost always Zeffirelli himself, a masterful and eclectic painter with refined technique and exquisite narrative sensitivity.
The Zeffirelli Museum houses over 250 works by Maestro Zeffirelli, including stage designs, drawings, and costume sketches. Alongside these, photographs, videos, models, and costumes bring to life dozens of memorable performances.
The first rooms of the Museum are dedicated to the two figures who most influenced Franco Zeffirelli’s early career. In the first room, you’ll find set designs created by Salvador Dalí and Zeffirelli for productions directed by his mentor, Luchino Visconti. Then, visitors are welcomed into an immersive room dedicated to Maria Callas, where they can relive moments from four operas born from the collaboration between the “Divine” Callas and Zeffirelli.
After working as assistant and later set designer for Luchino Visconti, Zeffirelli made his operatic directorial debut at the age of 30 years at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, garnering immediate success. Soon, he was in demand at theatres both in Italy and abroad, recognized not only for the impeccable grace of his sets and costumes but also for his exceptional ability to direct singers, particularly in the 19th-century opera buffa repertoire.
Two rooms are dedicated to drama theatre. The first room highlights Shakespeare with historic productions of “Romeo and Juliet” and “Much Ado About Nothing” at the Old Vic in London, starring Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, and Albert Finney; the Italian versions of “Hamlet” with Giorgio Albertazzi and “Romeo and Juliet“ with Giancarlo Giannini and Anna Maria Guarnieri; “Lorenzaccio” by de Musset in Paris for the Comédie Française; and finally, Schiller’s romantic theatre with Valentina Cortese and Rossella Falk sharing the stage in “Mary Stuart”. The second room features Zeffirelli’s productions of works by Verga, De Filippo, and Pirandello in Italy and abroad, as well as the Italian premieres of American playwrights such as Edward Albee and Arthur Miller, with extraordinary actors like Anna Magnani, Laurence Olivier and Monica Vitti.
In Room 6, which concludes the first wing of the Museum, a 30-minute video offers a retrospective of Zeffirelli’s career, featuring highlights from his most acclaimed theatrical productions and clips from his films.
Before entering the second wing of the Museum, a space is dedicated to the 1966 documentary Zeffirelli made to tell the world about the tragic days of the flood that devastated Florence.
The second wing of the Museum opens with a celebration of opera, Zeffirelli’s favorite art form, which he called “the garden of Olympus, where all the Muses join hands.” In a multimedia room, music blends with images drawn by Zeffirelli, offering visitors an immersive experience that evokes the creative process behind them.
From his auspicious debut at Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Zeffirelli’s career continued unabated, marked by successes across the stages of four continents. The materials displayed in the following rooms—sketches, costumes, models, and rehearsal and stage photographs—trace the evolution of Zeffirelli’s stagecraft, comparing different productions of the same opera. Visitors can also enjoy a range of Augmented Reality experiences, activated individually via a mobile app, allowing deeper exploration of select works through materials held in the Archive, not accessible to the public.
Room 13 houses a faithful reconstruction of Zeffirelli’s studio. His exuberant and affectionate personality shines through in the myriad objects that populate the space: family portraits, artworks by his dear friends Lila de Nobili and Piero Tosi, early landscapes painted by Zeffirelli during his school years, signed photographs from friends and collaborators, ceramic statuettes, books, and flowers.
Room 15 is home to the large Inferno Room, dedicated to the unfinished project of a cinematic adaptation of Dante’s poem. Zeffirelli’s preparatory studies for the visual interpretation of the Dantean journey are displayed here, along with their multimedia elaborations.
The subsequent rooms illustrate Zeffirelli’s films, ranging from opera films, romantic films, spiritual films, autobiographical works, and Shakespearean adaptations. A gallery of stars graces the set photos from these films: Vanessa Redgrave, William Hurt, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Alec Guinness, Robert Powell, Cher, Fanny Ardant, Jeremy Irons, Mel Gibson, Glenn Close, Alan Bates, Helena Bonham-Carter, Olivia Hussey, Leonard Whiting, Elizabeth Taylor, and Richard Burton.
The visit to the Museum concludes with a tribute to Piero Tosi, an exceptional costume designer who shared his formative years, early career experiences, great productions, and a lifelong friendship with Zeffirelli.