Established by Arch. Gaspare Cervantes in the aftermath of the Council of Trent for the training of the clergy, the Diocesan Museum “San Matteo” of Salerno was expanded and renovated over the centuries until the current neoclassical style of the early nineteenth century. Passing through the main entrance door of the museum, one accesses an airy courtyard. Here, on the ground floor, are the storage rooms and the Directorate, while the exhibition halls open on the first floor. The rich artistic heritage includes artifacts ranging from the Middle Ages to the twentieth 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 sixteenth-century painter Andrea Sabatini. Currently, the reorganization of the exhibition spaces is underway: the Museum can offer the visitor only a few works, from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century, placed in three large rooms.
The art collection
The collection is made up of works of art mostly from the Salerno Cathedral. In the first room is the precious ivory cycle, 67 pieces of local production from the first half of the 12th century with scenes mainly 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), a altar frontal, according to the most accredited restoration, and the eleven sheets of the parchment scroll 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 represented centuries are the Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries with the collection coming from the Legacy of the 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 Salerno artist Andrea Sabatini.
The Museum also boasts an extensive numismatic collection, including 923 coins, from the Magna Graecia era to the Norman period, already arranged in showcases, and a pontifical medal collection. There are also precious Codices (from the 11th century), some beautifully illuminated (13th century Pontifical), parchments (13 Degrees of the Salerno Medical College), Cinquecentine and Seicentine. The collections are enriched by some sculptures (marble and wooden), mosaic plutei (12th century) from the Lower Choir of the Cathedral, works of goldsmithery, a lapidary and several archaeological finds from the Roman and early medieval periods.
Pontifical Book
The Pontifical Book as well, of Bolognese manufacture, made for the Salernitan cathedral in 1180, is entirely illuminated. Also notable are a wooden crucifix from the Byzantine era and the so-called Cross of Robert Guiscard, a reliquary from the end of the 1000s containing the teeth of Saint 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: notable are the Crucifixion by Roberto D’Oderisio, the only signed work by the Neapolitan painter of Giottesque influence; the Coronation of the Virgin attributed to the so-called Master of the Coronation of Eboli; and the St. 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 by the so-called Master of the Franciscan Polyptychs, Bartolomeo da Pistoia, and above all Andrea Sabatini, whose paintings, all depicting the mother of Christ, are the focus of the third room.
The Counter-Reformation Devotional Painting
The Counter-Reformation devotional 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 the 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 paintings by Nicola Vaccaro and Nicola Malionconico serve as a crossroads of Giordano’s 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 Direction area, an archive and a library with about 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 the Roman and early medieval periods.
Information about Diocesan Museum “San Matteo”
Largo Plebiscito, 12 ,
84121 Salerno
Phone: 089.239126
Diocesan Museum San Matteo Opening Hours
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
