Juliet's House

Historical Notes

“Capuleti House” was long the property of the Dal Cappello family. The combination of Cappello and Capuleti led people to believe that this had been Juliet’s house, the unhappy lover of the noted Shakespearean tragedy. In reality the building dates from the XII century. In 1905 the house was purchased by the City of Verona.
The building took on its current aspect only seventy years ago: Antonio Avena, director of the cities museums transformed it from an anonymous ex-stall to the home of the dreaming Juliet. The aspect and internal structure of the building, prior to the restoration, remain a mystery. We must be satisfied to observe the end result, under the sign of a “medieval scenography”.

Architecture and Art

Overall, the “restoration” respected the structure of the interior more than anything else. In fact, recent studies on medieval living give us an image of a living environment that was quite similar to Capuleti House.
Elements such as the banister that puts the various bodies of the house into communication, and the prinicple hall on the first floor, which is well adapted to the image of the “multi-purpose” room, can still be read: traditionally, in fact, the most important room was appointed as a master bedroom, but it could, if necessary, be transformed into a hall for parties; it depended upon the ability of the servants to move furnishings, carpets and tapestries, giving life in a few minutes to a scenario suitable for a party.
The pictorial decorations, in this connection, are meaningful. Although they re-propose more or less current themes for the era the home was built in, they have been proposed entirely ex-novo. Only one single strip of original painting can be glimpsed in the main hall: at one point the evanescent trace of an “imitation vair“ border cans till be seen, which reproduces the festoons of ermine furs, with which the rich decorated the halls of their dwellings.
In the courtyard there is a bronze statue of Juliet, a work by the sculptor Nereo Costantini.