National Museum of Musical Instruments — Attraction in Rome

Amazing collection of musical instruments - including many pianos, organs harps, harpsichords, stringed and wind instruments, and so much more. Housed in a beautifully renovated building with its own rich history of use, the instruments are displayed across two floors. For the modest entrance fee of €6 per adult ticket (April 2024), you can spend, as we did several hours exploring the galleries. Because a great many of the larger instruments are not enclosed, you will find museum proctors will be very visible. We struck up quite a conversation with one who was with us, Lorena (spelled correctly, I hope), who was very generous with their time explaining what she knew about the collection. I was particularly struck by the mechanical organ, which was built in a case which is the facade of the Cathedral of Siena. The second equally large piece in this gallery is a storage case for rolls used in the mechanical organ, and it is the Cathedral of Orvieto! Remarkable.

We're going back Friday night for a concert where musicians will perform on some of the historical instruments.

April...

A beautiful, clean, well organised museum with many interesting instruments. Especially the old pianos were impressive. For the price well recommended! It would have been nice to have seen some more of the instruments in action, only a few of them had a sound or video example. Like others have mentioned before, we were followed meticulously throughout our visit which was not very comfortable. The person following us was also not helpful as he spoke no English and didn't seem to have any knowledge of the pieces on display. He was somewhat distracting by standing in front of what we wanted to read and was urging us on when we weren't ready yet. I would advise them to hang up more cameras and barriers and then leave the visitors alone. Finally, the route through the museum was not very clear but I guess in that case it was nice to have a...

This was a annoying experience because of the rude receptionist especially. I should have read the reviews explaining that much of the collection isn’t on display. The snarly woman at the ticket desk evidently had good English but didn’t explain anything about why we were deprived of the opportunity to see much of the collection. Also the audio guide wasn’t offered so we didn’t get that. If you decide to go anyway despite this warning you may see some beautiful examples of harpsichords and similar antique keyed instrument and a few examples of stringed instruments like harps and a few early guitars. Or who knows what fraction of their collection they might reveal. Don’t expect much it doesn’t live up to the billing so then you won’t be disappointed. It’s hard to find also and the front door was locked ring the bell...