Women Writers’ House Museums in France, Italy, Portugal and Spain

Joëlle Saliba (University of Pau and the Adour Region, France, University of Turin, Italy)

While writers’ house museums are a well-established category of literary tourism, they remain profoundly marked by gender inequality. Among the hundreds of writer house museums that have been identified across France, Italy, Portugal and Spain, very few are dedicated to the lives and work of women writers, so few that they can be enumerated within a single dictionary entry. The ones that exist and that have been open to the public – regularly or occasionally – in the last thirty years or so, fall under two categories:  on the one hand, the house museum that bears the name of a woman writer and in which she is a central figure, on the other hand, the house museum dedicated to writer couples, the illustrious husband’s memory usually eclipsing that of his wife. In that sense, the spatial invisibility mirrors the historical invisibility that women writers have suffered throughout the centuries.

This dictionary entry presents an overview of women writers’ house museums in the aforementioned European countries, while reflecting on the tension between domesticity and creativity as well as the parallel narratives within the house. A thorough visit to the website of the French federation of writers’ houses and literary heritage (Fédération nationale des maisons d’écrivains et patrimoines littéraires) reveals that, out of the 185 places listed as writer houses in France, only twelve are monographic women writers’ house museums. Madame de Sévigné (1626-1696) and George Sand (1804-1876) each have two houses attached to their names. It is also the case for Marguerite Yourcenar (1903-1987), one house dedicated to her memory can be found in the French Flanders, on the border with Belgium. Another, dubbed “Petite Plaisance”, is located in Maine (USA) where she lived with her partner Grace Frick between 1950 and 1987. The other monographic house museums celebrate the lives and work of Colette (1873-1954), Alexandra David-Neel (1868-1969), Marie Noël (1883-1967), Andrée Brunin (1937-1993), Catherine Paysan (1926-2020), Madame de Staël (1766-1817) and Camille Aubaude (1959-). In Italy, the National Association of houses of Memory (Associazione Nazionale Case della Memoria) presents the house of Maria Montessori (1870-1952) and that of writer and Holocaust survivor Elisa Springer (1918-2004) in the “writers and poets” section whereas no house museum solely celebrating a woman writer can be found on the website of the Spanish association of house museums and Writer Foundations (Asociación de Casas-Museo y Fundaciones de Escritores) neither on the website of the Portuguese association of house museums (Associação Portuguesa de Casas-Museu). At the regional level, two such house museums exist in Galicia, in northwest Spain, and are listed on the website of the Spanish Ministry of Culture: Casa-Museo Rosalía de Castro and Casa-Museo Emilia Pardo Bazán. In Catalonia, the private non-profit association Written Spaces. Catalan Literary Heritage Network (Espais Escrits. Xarxa del Patrimoni Literari Català) created a literary map, embedding Catalan writers within their home region or tracing their footsteps across the world. Among the 118 writers “located” on the map, 19 are women. It is interesting to note that Caterina Albert, whose name nowadays appears on the map, used to write under the pseudonym Víctor Català. After having scandalised the jury of a literary prize she won, she decided to hide behind that name. Thus, she was able to create a place for herself within the literary scene at the time and, subsequently, within literary heritage.

In the last twenty years, the Regional Delegation of Culture in the North of Portugal has worked on the project “Viajar com…Os Caminhos da Literatura” (“Travelling with… The Ways of Literature”), publishing a collection of books that allow readers to follow in the footsteps of emblematic Portuguese writers. The collection currently comprises twenty-one volumes, four of which present the lives, works, homes, and other relevant spaces of Augusta Bessa-Luís (1922-2019), Maria Ondina Braga (1922-2003), Luísa Decosta (1927-2015), and Florbela Espanca (1894-1930). The house where the latter was born, located in Vila Viçosa (Alentejo, Portugal), is currently being brought back to life by Angolan artist Kina Maua N’Pango through guided visits, artist residencies and a poetry festival. It is worth noting that Vila Viçosa is not the only town relevant to Florbela Espanca’s biography. A Master’s project by Beatriz Martins delves into the relationship that linked the forgotten author to the coastal city of Matosinhos, “a locale of paramount significance in both her personal and artistic realms”, while also exploring the “interplay between poetry and feminism” (2024, p. 67).

Unlike statues, libraries, streets or squares that simply display the name of a writer, house museums and the literary trails in which some are inscribed, develop emplaced narratives (Rule, 2018, p. 404)that demonstrate the “material existence” of writers (Watson, 2023, p. 31), facilitating identification with them as individuals but also raising awareness about the social conditions that affected their work. This is especially relevant from a gender perspective: George Sand (1804-1876) used to write from midnight until four in the morning, not because inspiration struck during the night, but because her children and guests would be asleep (Emery, 2019, p. 121). For Grazia Deledda (1871-1936), Sardinian writer and winner of the 1926 literature Nobel Prize, the childhood house, located in Nuoro (Sardinia, Italy), was the place where a little girl became a writer, but where reading was done in secret because it was not considered “a feminine activity” (Petrignani, 2002, p. 21). Another noteworthy example from Italy is the room of the poet Alda Merini (1931-2009), reconstructed in a former tabacherria, not far from the apartment she used to rent, in the Navigli neighbourhood (southwest Milan). The small space, overflowing with objects, where an unmade bed is covered in dresses and wilted roses, reflects the contrast between her unexpected rise to fame and her struggles with mental health. According to poet Alberto Casiraghi, who was interviewed in 2018 by Alessia Zinnari, “her chaotic lifestyle was not only due to her lack of money, or to her mental illness, but it was the result of Merini’s deliberate refusal to assume once again the role of the housewife.” (2023, p. 8). In this case, personal space becomes a feminist manifesto, and objects take on a dimension specific to women’s social conditions and what is often expected of them.

When it comes to the case of writer couples, the name of the house can be misleading on two levels: either it only refers to the famous husband, or it refers to both the man and the woman writer, but the visitor then discovers that the latter is absent from the house’s narrative. The name becomes an indicator of a power struggle, and rethinking it would be the first step to reinstating women in the houses they inhabited, not only as wives and/or mothers but also as authors and/or translators. There are notable exceptions in which the literary couple is the very foundation of the house as a museum, and the narrative reflects the name. These are due to a conscious curatorial choice, like in the cases of Maison Elsa Triolet-Aragon in Saint-Arnoult-en-Yvelines (France) and the house of painters and poets Max Ernst and Dorothea Tanning in Huismes (France). Some others are due to the request of the writer: Andalusian poet Juan Ramón Jiménez specifically wished that the name of writer Zenobia Camprubí (his wife) appear before his own in the House museum’s name, prompting the group who endeavoured to pay tribute to the exiled poet to acknowledge the literary legacy of his life partner. House museum monikers like “Villa Arnaga-Musée Edmond Rostand” (Cambo-les-Bains, France), “Maison Armand Gatti” (Montreuil, France) or “Casa Miguel Torga” (Coimbra, Portugal) give the impression that only one writer inhabited the space when in reality there is a spouse whose literary work merits a narrative of its own. Indeed, Rosemonde Gérard (1871-1953), Hélène Châtelain (1935-2020) and Andrée Crabbé Rocha (1917-2003) have had literary careers that are significant and yet overshadowed by the respective legacies of Edmond Rostand, Armand Gatti and Miguel Torga.

In a 2002 article, Linda Young states that “there are very few houses presenting much beyond conventional references to women in kitchens, drawing rooms, bedrooms and nurseries”. Since then, there have been some efforts by writer house museums to reconsider their narratives (Bideran, 2025, p. 199). In 2024, Villa Arnaga or Musée Edmond Rostand organised a temporary exhibition dedicated to Rosemonde Gérard. A conference soon followed, in October of the same year, organised by the University of Pau in partnership with the house museum, the town of Cambo-les-Bains and the association “Amis d’Arnaga”. Different aspects of her literary background and production were examined, including her role in helping Edmond Rostand write and edit his plays. She is usually portrayed as the devoted wife who put her literary career on hold to support her famous husband.

One of the myths that writers’ house museums construct is that of the author as a solitary genius who works in isolation. Introducing the woman as a writer inside these places of memory is sure to alter the perception of “genius” as being an occult and impenetrable force, reserved for the “Grand écrivain”. In that sense, the writers’ house museum can serve as a means to question gender bias in literary history and to understand how most women were denied literary recognition during their lifetimes and/or posthumously. It can also be a witness to the creative dynamics within writer couples and a guardian of women’s literary heritage.

How to cite this dictionary entry: Saliba, J. (2026). Women writers’ house museums in France, Italy, Portugal and Spain. In R. Baleiro, G. Capecchi & J. Arcos-Pumarola (Eds.), E-Dictionary of Literary Tourism. University for Foreigners of Perugia. https://doi.org/10.34623/zdg2-hn59

References

Asociación de Casas-Museo y Fundaciones de Escritores. https://www.museosdeescritores.com

Associação Portuguesa de Casas-Museu. https://www.apcm.pt

Associazione Nazionale Case della Memoria. https://www.casedellamemoria.it/it/

Bideran, J. D. (2025). Rosemonde Gérard, femme poète de la Belle Époque à la Villa Arnaga : Absence et présence muséographique d’une poétesse. Culture & musées, 46, 198‑207. https://doi.org/10.4000/159cr

Espais Escrits. Xarxa del Patrimoni Literari Català. https://www.espaisescrits.cat/ca

Fédération nationale des maisons d’écrivains et patrimoines littéraires.  https://litterature-lieux.com/fr

Martins, B., & Pascoal, S. (s. d.). Voices of Empowerment: A Feminist Literary Tour Through Matosinhos, Exploring Florbela Espanca’s Poetry. LIT&TOUR – International Journal of Literature and Tourism Research, 3, 66‑76.

Petrignani, S. (2003). La scrittrice abita qui (7th ed.). Neri Pozza Ed. https://archive.org/details/lascrittriceabit0000petr/page/226/mode/2up

Watson, N. J. (2023). The author’s effects: On writer’s house museums. Oxford University Press.

Young, L. (2002). A woman’s place is in the house…museum. Open Museum Journal, 5, 1‑24.

Zinnari, A. (2023). Alda Merini: Stigma and the Struggle for Authority as a Woman Writer. In S. Hecker & C. Ramsey-Portolano (Eds.), Female Cultural Production in Modern Italy (p. 173‑187). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14816-3_11