Puccini Birthplace Museum

Giacomo Puccini was born in Lucca in 1858, and the house on Corte San Lorenzo near Piazza San Michele where he spent his childhood is now a museum. The rooms preserve furnishings and personal effects from the composer's life, including the piano on which he composed and correspondence with his contemporaries. It is a modest domestic space rather than a grand monument, which makes it unexpectedly moving for anyone who knows the operas.

The museum is small — an hour is more than enough — but the combination of the childhood home, the family documents, and the proximity of the church of San Michele where Puccini played the organ as a teenager makes it a worthwhile stop for anyone with even a passing interest in opera. The Puccini Festival at Torre del Lago, a short drive south of Lucca, runs every summer in July and August.

things to do museum
A story
Puccini's connection to Lucca goes beyond birthplace loyalty. His breakthrough opera, Le Villi, was rejected by the publisher Ricordi in 1883 — a decision Ricordi later admitted was one of the great mistakes of his career. When Puccini submitted Manon Lescaut nine years later, Ricordi published it enthusiastically. The rest is operatic history.