House of Dante in Rome, Medieval house in Trastevere, Rome, Italy.

The House of Dante in Rome occupies the Palazzo degli Anguillara in Piazza Sonnino, in Trastevere: a brown-brick and ochre-plaster building whose tall square tower, one of the last surviving in the district, has a crenellated top added in the 1902 rebuilding by architect Fallani. The plastered facade has a pitched roof, round-arched lower openings and rectangular upper windows with pale stone frames. A 15th-century portal bears the arms of Everso II Anguillara.

The oldest part of the complex, facing the Tiber on Piazza Gioachino Belli, dates to the 13th century; Count Everso II Anguillara rebuilt the palace foundations and its tower around 1455. A 1542 earthquake left it damaged, and it served as stable, market and cellar before passing to the Forti family in the 19th century. Expropriated in 1887, it was rebuilt in 1902 by architect Fallani, and from 1902 Sidney Sonnino obtained its use for Lectura Dantis; the Casa di Dante was made a moral entity by royal decree on 16 July 1914.

Since 1913 the Casa di Dante has held Sunday-morning lecturae Dantis from October to April at 11.00 in its large hall: scholars read and comment on one of the hundred cantos of the Commedia, and the lectures are free and open to all until seats run out. Over 1,400 such readings have been given, and the roll of speakers includes Pasquale Villari, Natalino Sapegno, Gianfranco Contini and Giorgio Petrocchi, alongside non-specialists such as Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and Giovanni Gentile.

The Casa di Dante occupies the Anguillara complex at Piazza Sonnino 5, on the corner of Via della Lungaretta, a short walk from Ponte Garibaldi and the Trastevere bank of the Tiber. Its Sunday-morning lecturae Dantis, held at 11.00 between October and April in the large hall, are free and open to all until seats run out.

The tower is the last surviving medieval tower of Trastevere. In the early 19th century its tenants set up a public nativity scene on it, and later the Forti family ran an enamel and coloured-glass workshop in the complex, known for its crèche.