The Museum of the General House of the Camillians is annexed to the Church of Santa Maria Maddalena in Campo Marzio in Rome, a splendid masterpiece of Roman baroque-rococo, and houses precious relics and everyday objects belonging to Saint Camillus de Lellis.
Inside the display cases of the Chapter Hall, you can admire documents of great historical importance, artifacts and manuscripts produced over the centuries by the Order of the Camillians, paintings and numerous religious furnishings. Of great significance and placed in the museum’s new exhibition space are the beautiful painting by Sebastiano Conca depicting Saint Camillus attending to the sick at the Colosseum and the Michelangelo school wooden statue of the Virgin, restored precisely for the celebrations of the 4th Centenary of the death of Saint Camillus de Lellis.
Among the everyday objects of Father Camillus are the wooden table crucifix, the typical cap of the Order he founded, some bandages used to dress the ulcerated wound on his ankle, the chalice and bowl used to celebrate the Eucharist.
The bright museum room is enriched by a multimedia video device, with various explanatory content about Saint Camillus’s birthplace, the work of the Camillians today with the Camillian Task Force, and the iCamilliani app, made for all smartphones and tablets.
Finally, the Cubiculum, former infirmary of the General House and the place where Saint Camillus de Lellis died on July 14, 1614. Here, the Relic of the Saint’s Heart, venerated worldwide, has found a suggestive placement at the center of a splendid stained glass window created by Master Poli.
Next to the heart, on the wall, is the wooden support of the Crucifix that comforted Saint Camillus in a moment of discouragement, urging him to continue his work, kept in one of the Chapels of the Church of Maddalena.
In the Cubiculum is also kept one of the foot wound bandages of Camillus, while on the walls two large canvases by Matteo Toni from 1875, “The Viaticum of Saint Camillus” and “The Death of Saint Camillus,” solemnly describe the last moments of the Saint’s life, which took place precisely in the space where they are exhibited.
