Il Museo Cristiano – founded in 1946, but renovated and expanded under the care of the current archpriest of the Cathedral, Mons. Guido Genero – hosts two prestigious sections: the Lombard Heritage and the Cathedral Treasury. The first consists of two famous monuments included in the UNESCO nomination: the Ratchis Altar (recently restored with the rediscovery of original polychrome) and the Baptistery of Callisto.
The Cathedral Treasury presents in a completely new and coordinated form objects of goldsmithing and liturgical use, pictorial artworks (notably the “Noli me tangere” by Pordenone and two works by Veronese) and sculptures, manuscripts and codices that well testify to the absolute prestige of the millennia-old Christian history of the ancient capital.
Already recognized worldwide prestige includes some of the precious sacred vestments on display, such as the sixteenth-century “Barbaro chasuble,” an exquisite product of Turkish weaving previously exhibited at the MoMa in New York, London, Paris, and Venice; the thirteenth-century “Mitre of S. Paolino”; the seventeenth-century vestments for the traditional Spadone Mass.
Cividale and Friuli – never marginal in history, culture, commerce, and art – have managed to assimilate the best of a vast territory characterized by expressions of Latin, Germanic, and Slavic cultures; to merge them into unity and defend it with its stone walls. Now the goal – favored by the UNESCO nomination – is to create an integrated system that envisages agreements and institutional synergies at regional, transregional, and international levels to rediscover, in a shared geocultural corridor, affinities and expressive commonalities.
Among the main synergies is certainly that between public institutions and religious institutions, holders of a vast heritage of art – basilicas, frescoes, statues, illuminated codices, refined goldsmith works – whose enhancement is also part of the cultural, social, and religious promotion plans of the Church.
Information on Christian Museum and Cathedral Treasury
Via Condotti, 1
33043 Cividale del Friuli (Udine)
0432730403
info@mucris.it
https://www.webdiocesi.chiesacattolica.it
from Wednesday to Sunday from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm and from 3:00 pm to 6:00 pm
4.00
Source: MIBACT
