Cavafy Archive

We are transported into the universe of the Alexandrian poet through a space immersed in his life and work.

Located on Frynichou Street in Plaka, the Cavafy Archive is more than a museum. It houses the personal and work archive of the Alexandrian poet, along with 966 books from his library, and contemporary creations by internationally acclaimed artists from New York to Athens. It is a living archive that continues to grow and evolve.

Following the launch of the Cavafy Archive’s digital collection in March 2019, which made the archive freely accessible to all, the Onassis Foundation created a physical space dedicated to the poet, opening the Cavafy Archive in Athens in November 2023.

The venue showcases Cavafy’s manuscripts and books, as well as his personal belongings and furniture, alongside a curated selection of artworks that illuminate his ever-growing influence on artists from his time to the present day.

In December 2024, the Archive was expanded with two new rooms, presenting additional materials from his library, works from his contemporaries which were inspired by the poet, as well as pieces by internationally recognized artists first featured in the Onassis Foundation’s “Archive of Desire” festival in New York (April 28 to May 6, 2023). Two years after their premiere at National Sawdust, in October 2025, two of the festival’s most iconic productions return to the stage.

As part of the new season program of the independent music venue and incubator for emerging artists in Brooklyn, Robin Coste Lewis’s performance "Archive of Desire" will be presented in October 2025, while a new version of "Constantinopoliad" by Sister Sylvester will transport us into a digital, Cavafy-imbued universe in the winter of 2026.

The Cavafy Archive continues to grow richer, with new exhibits on site, new acquisitions, and connections to Cavafy collections held by other institutions in Greece and abroad. Explore more than 3,000 items from the digital collection at cavafy.onassis.org.

The mission of the Cavafy Archive is to provide free and open access to researchers as well as the wider public, and to promote Cavafy’s work and the international character of his poetry through the digitisation and complete re-documentation of the archive’s materials.

C. P. Cavafy collected and archived his work on a systematic basis, hence creating a unique literary and personal archive. The Cavafy Archive consists of manuscripts of poems, hand-compiled printed editions, prose literary works, articles, studies and notes by the poet. The digital collection invites you to discover all of the above, along with C. P. Cavafy’s personal archive rich in correspondence, texts, and photographs.

The Onassis Foundation acquired the Cavafy archive at the end of 2012, thus enriching the collections of the Onassis Library, which hosts rare publications and a cultural heritage of seven centuries, safeguarding its preservation in Greece and preventing its potential fragmentation.