Sonet Villa - "Mihai Codreanu" Memorial House
The memorial house "Mihai Codreanu", also known as "Vila Sonet", title given by the owner of the house after the literary species he cultivated for six decades, was built in the interbelic period, in neo-Romanian style, with Brâncovene arcades. The cultural objective preserves the authentic imprint of the sonnet writer, of the numerous literary meetings that took place in the living room of the house; objects talking about those who crossed its threshold from well-known writers such as: Mihail Sadoveanu, George Topârceanu, Păstorel and Ionel Teodoreanu, Otilia Cazimir, Demostene Botez, George Lesnea and others, to famous actors and theater people such as: Miluță Gheorghiu, Sandu Morcovescu Teleajen, Aurel Ghițescu, Marioara Davidoglu, Sorana Țopa, Aurel Ion Maican and up to students from various faculties of Philology, Philosophy and Art dramatic.
Mihai Codreanu's activity took place on several levels. In the field of writing noted as the most prolific sonnetist, permanent columnist, translator from French literature, with a predominance of versified plays. In the professional field he worked as a lawyer, professor and rector of the Conservatory of Music and Dramatic Art, director of Of the National Theater from Iași. His work was crowned by the many distinctions received from part of the Romanian state as well as from the French state, culminating in 1942 with his appointment as a corresponding member of the Romanian Academy. Mihai Codreanu, like most financially powerful intellectuals of the time, from 1927 enters the lodge of Masonic Dimitrie Cantemir established in Iași with Mihail as a spiritual mentor Sadoveanu.
The museum has in its patrimony several objects with direct reference to Freemasonry. One among them would be the bamboo sword and the Toledo steel foil. The ritual of initiation into Freemasonry presupposed the existence of a prop from which the sword was not missing. It is said that Mihai Codreanu was anointed with this sword. When the poet is promoted to the rank of lodge, he received as a gift a ceramic coffee service in the shape of a human skull that represents a "Memento Mori" (Remember that you will die), as an incentive not to look with fear the fatal moment.
In the architecture of Villa Sonet can be identified several Masonic symbols such as the tower of the house which bears a pentagonal inner niche, which is entered through a vault with seven lobes (the figure 7 being a divine number) supported on two Corinthian columns. Most Masonic encounters have took place in a house on Mihai Eminescu Street, near the Sonet Villa, but some meetings were also held in the basement of the house of master Mihai Codreanu.
The permanent exhibition in the memorial house marks the main aspects of life and the activity of the writer, rendering the authentic atmosphere of the way of organizing the small houses, bourgeois, from Iaşi in the first half of the 20th century.
- article made by Alexandru Popescu în collaboration with Beatrice Panțiru - Vila Sonet museum coordinator
