Minerva, the Bookstore Cat of Rome

Meet Minerva, the resident cat of Rome’s Spazio Sette bookstore.

If you ask the staff at Spazio Sette when Minerva started working there, they’ll probably tell you she hired herself.

On the night of the Epiphany in 2023, a cat wandered into Spazio Sette, an independent bookstore and café tucked inside a former monastery in Rome. The staff assumed someone would come looking for her. They fed her, asked around, and waited. But nobody did, so the cat stayed.

She was named Minerva, after the Roman goddess of wisdom, which feels like an appropriately literary name for a cat who had chosen a bookstore over just about anywhere else.

These days, Minerva spends her time greeting visitors, supervising customers from comfortable chairs, and finding the best sunny, warm spots for afternoon naps. The bookstore’s founder said that some people stop by specifically to see her, while others discover her by accident somewhere between the travel section and the café. An artist painted her portrait. It isn’t hard to see why.

Bookstores have always attracted people looking for a cozy place to spend an afternoon, and Minerva just fits into that rhythm without trying very hard. She doesn’t recommend books, although regular visitors might disagree. She’s just there with the sort of confidence only cats seem able to achieve.

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