House Museum Accademia d’Armi Musumeci Greco

Located on the first floor of a 15th-century building on Via del Seminario, a few steps from the Pantheon, the House Museum - Casa Museo Accademia d’Armi Musumeci Greco houses a collection of weapons from the 16th to the 20th century from all over the world, as well as shields, masks and precious stage blades. The building was constructed and inhabited by the Spanish bishop Diego Meléndez de Valdés, chamberlain to Pope Alexander VI Borgia, but since the late 19th century, its history has been intertwined with that of the Musumeci Greco family, the oldest family of fencers in the world.

The Academy has been owned by the family since 1878, when it came into the possession of Salvatore Greco dei Chiaramonte, a Garibaldi volunteer and hero of the Risorgimento in Sicily. His sons took up the baton: Agesilao, world fencing champion and friend of heads of state and intellectuals such as King Umberto, Einaudi, Trilussa, D'Annunzio and Marinetti, was responsible for founding the Italian Fencing Federation, while his brother Aurelio, passionate about painting as well as weapons, was the winner of the “Duel of the Century” against Candido Sassone. At the end of the 1930s, their grandson Enzo Musumeci Greco started the business of stage fencing and collaboration with the great cinema, from Cinecittà to Hollywood, with theatre and then with television, giving life to a tradition continued by his son Renzo.

From Alessandro Blasetti’s “La corona di ferro” (The Iron Crown), the first film in which Enzo Musumeci Greco participated in 1941 as Master of Arms, Olympic fencers and famous names from the world of entertainment learned to fence on the Academy’s platforms. These include, for example, Errol Flynn, Richard Burton, Charlton Heston, Vittorio Gassman, Burt Lancaster, Gina Lollobrigida, Tyrone Power, Max von Sydow, Philippe Leroy, Orson Welles, Yves Montand, Walter Chiari and Domenico Modugno, Kim Rossi Stuart, Alessandro Preziosi, Alessandro Gassman, Monica Bellucci and many others. Original films and photo albums kept in the House Museum allow visitors to retrace the long history of this collaboration.

Part of the courses offered by the Accademia d’Armi are held in the House Museum. The fencing hall, one of the oldest in the world, also houses works by great 20th-century artists such as Duilio Cambellotti and Mimmo Paladino, and is part of the ADSI (Italian Historic Houses Association) and UNASCI (National Union of Centenary Sports Associations of Italy). The House Museum opens its doors to private events and guided tours by appointment. Tours last about an hour and can be supplemented on request with demonstrations by fencing masters.

Photo Casa Museo Accademia d’Armi Musumeci Greco