Established by Archbishop Gaspare Cervantes in the aftermath of the Council of Trent for the training of the clergy, the “San Matteo” Diocesan Museum of Salerno has been expanded and renovated over the centuries until its current neoclassical style from the early decades of the 19th century. Passing through the main entrance of the museum leads to a spacious courtyard. Here, on the ground floor, are the storage areas and the Administration, while the exhibition rooms open on the first floor. The rich artistic heritage includes artifacts ranging from the Middle Ages to the 20th century.
After the 1980 earthquake, the renovation of the premises began, and in 1993 the exhibition was expanded with a section of panel paintings created between the 14th and 16th centuries and with a room dedicated to the 16th-century painter Andrea Sabatini. Currently, the reorganization of the exhibition spaces is underway: the Museum can offer visitors only some works, from the Middle Ages to the 20th century, placed in three large rooms.
The art collection
The collection consists of artworks mainly from the Cathedral of Salerno. In the first room is the precious ivory cycle, 67 locally produced pieces from the first half of the 12th century with scenes mostly from the Old and New Testament, whose most accepted destination is as an altar frontal.
Exultet
Stand out the famous ivory cycle with scenes taken from the Old and New Testament (12th century), an altar frontal, according to the most accredited restoration, and the eleven sheets of the parchment roll of the Exultet (13th century) illustrating the Easter Proclamation. The paintings, mainly on panel and canvas, date from the 13th to the 20th century, although the most present centuries are the 17th and 18th centuries with the collection from the Legacy of Marquis Giovanni Ruggi D’Aragona (1870). They offer a sample of the most representative contemporary currents of the varied regional panorama with particular attention to the Salernitan Andrea Sabatini.
The Museum also boasts a substantial numismatic collection, including 923 coins, from the Magna Graecia era to the Norman period, already arranged in showcases, and a papal medal collection. There are also precious Codices (from the 11th century), some splendidly illuminated (13th century Pontifical), parchments (13 Degrees of the Salerno Medical College), 16th and 17th century books. The collections are enriched by some sculptures (marble and wooden), mosaic plutei (12th century) from the lower Choir of the Cathedral, goldsmith works, a lapidarium, and several archaeological finds from the Roman and early medieval periods.
Pontifical Book
The Pontifical Book as well, of Bolognese manufacture, created for the Salernitan cathedral in 1180, is entirely illuminated. Also noted are a wooden crucifix of Byzantine era and the so-called Cross of Robert Guiscard, a reliquary from the late 1000s containing the teeth of Saints Matthew and James the Lesser, and a fragment of the Holy Cross. The panel paintings, coming both from the cathedral and from various churches of the Diocese, offer a picture of Campanian culture between the 14th and 16th centuries: noteworthy are the Crucifixion by Roberto D’Oderisio, the only signed work by the Neapolitan painter influenced by Giotto; the Coronation of the Virgin attributed to the so-called Master of the Coronation of Eboli; and Saint Michael the Archangel by the Veronese painter Cristoforo Scacco, from the second half of the 15th century; the early Mannerist triptych with Madonna and Saints by the Salernitan Vincenzo De Rogata; the complex 16th-century paintings of the so-called Master of the Franciscan Polyptychs, Bartolomeo da Pistoia, and especially Andrea Sabatini, to whose paintings, all depicting the mother of Christ, the third room is dedicated.
The Devout Counter-Reformation Painting
The devout Counter-Reformation painting is represented by the canvas with The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine of Siena and the splendid Madonna of the Rosary by Francesco Curia, while from the seventeenth century, notable works include Saint Gemiano Penitent and Saint Peter by Jusepe De Ribeira. The painting depicting Saint Philip baptizing the eunuch, the latest acquisition of the Diocesan Museum, recalls landscape suggestions derived from Domenichino’s painting, while the works of Nicola Vaccaro and Nicola Malionconico stand as crossroads of Giordano influences and new artistic-compositional trends of the eighteenth century.
Since 2006, the relics have increased with the collection donated by the late Director Mons. Arturo Carucci and arranged in two side rooms. In the Directorate, an archive and a library with approximately 4000 titles available upon request are temporarily housed.
In the bright corridors leading to the rooms, part of the numismatic collection has been temporarily placed, ranging from the Magna Graecia to the Mint of Salerno. The collection is enriched by works of goldsmithery, a lapidary, and some archaeological finds from Roman and early medieval times.
Information about the Diocesan Museum “San Matteo”
Largo Plebiscito, 12 ,
84121 Salerno
Phone: 089.239126
Opening hours Diocesan Museum San Matteo
From 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM; from 3:00 PM to 7:00 PM.
Closed on Wednesdays
Ticket prices Diocesan Museum San Matteo
Adults 2.00 euros
Students (of all levels) 1.00 euro
