Major Wager Kates-playground

MUSEE INTERNATIONAL DE LA REFORMA
Geneva Switzerland

An austere but elegant building in the center of Geneva, Maison Mallet , houses the permanent exhibition of the Museum of the Reformation, which received the 2007 Prize to the International Council of Museums Europe. The exhibition brings together objects, books, manuscripts, prints and many Bibles commented on the sidelines, tracing the history of Protestantism in Geneva from 1536, the year of the first settlement in the Swiss town of Jean Cauvin and publication of one of the most important texts of the Reformation, the Institutio Christianae religionis .

The years that saw the birth and affirmation of Protestantism in Germany and Europe, were complex years, bloody, full of events and characters. The city Geneva certainly has a special relationship with them, but it can not be as strong as for the many visitors to the museum. Indeed, while it is flying in with nonchalance paternalistic tones with which they are presented to the Fathers of reform, Luther and Calvin, there is no other effective and concise historical context on the issue of indulgences, on the birth of the reform, and that his particular interpretation that is Calvinism. There is instead panels illustrating the endless wars of religion, tiring the reader, exhausted by the dense reading, then focuses fleetingly on the testimonies of windows. Again, if the captions maggiori sono tutte sia in francese che in inglese, tutte quelle minori (es. sull’impatto che l’adozione del calvinismo ebbe sull’urbanistica e sulla popolazione che già abitava al città) sono purtroppo soltanto in francese.


Un tocco di classe: il (mal)celato messaggio dove-siamo
-arrivati-noi-è-arrivato-il-benessere ricorda fin troppo i recenti e poco riusciti tentativi di far coincidere un modello religioso con uno economico e le improbabili esportazioni di democrazia e prosperità. Con questi toni la Maison Mallet più che un museo della Riforma sembra un museo per riformati.

Musée International de la Réforme
4, rue du Cloitre
Geneva - Switzerland
+41 22 310 24 31

Opening
Tuesday to Sunday from 10 to 17
Closed Mondays

Ticket
Adults 10 CHF (6.14 €)
Reduced 7 CHF (4.30 €)