The Costache Negri House (Casa Costache Negri) is a historic 19th-century house in Galați with roots to the Romanian writer, politician, and revolutionary Costache Negri. Over time, the property has served educational, museum, commercial, and institutional purposes.
Archival records show that Negri owned property here and commissioned the construction of a house in 1862, personally following the works toward the end of that year. He attempted to sell the property in 1867 but retained it until his death in 1876. By 1881 it belonged to A. Radu and was being used by the boys’ Normal School, which had moved from Ismail to Galați a few years earlier.
The property changed substantially during this period, with permission granted in 1881 for both new construction and repairs to existing buildings. These later works make it difficult to determine how much of Negri’s 1860s residence survives within the present house. The Normal School later left the property for purpose-built premises elsewhere in the city.
A new chapter began in 1976, when the Galați History Museum opened an exhibition here devoted to notable figures from the city’s modern history. The museum remained until 1986, when earthquake damage forced its closure. The building was later used by the Galați Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture and subsequently became the subject of a long ownership dispute.
In 2019, ownership passed to the Saint Andrew Orthodox Theological Seminary under the Archdiocese of the Lower Danube.
