Museo diocesano dell’arte sacra, Alghero

It is located in the historic center of the city, near the cathedral, in the oratory of Our Lady of the Rosary, where the homonymous suppressed confraternity founded in 1568 in the church of San Francesco was based. In the museum, inaugurated on June 30, 2000, the liturgical treasure of the cathedral of Alghero and other historic churches of the city is preserved. The museum collection is divided into six sections: silver, paintings, wooden sculptures, cabinetry, stone material, and bronzes. Silver: remarkable importance is given to the reliquary of the True Cross, a precious work of Catalan origin, forged by an unknown Algherese silversmith in the 1500s. Cabinetry: the section includes a large baroque tabernacle in inlaid wood, coming from the church of San Giovanni Battista, a typical example of the austere cabinetry of the Capuchin Order. Wooden sculptures: this section houses several statues of saints and the Virgin, bearing witness to the cults and devotions that, over the centuries, have nurtured the faith of the Algherese population. The bronze collection includes two bells, one of which, from the 1400s, comes from the bell tower of the cathedral. The museum collection features paintings dating back to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Of note is the predella of the retablo of the Annunciation, coming from the small church of Speranza, in the countryside of Alghero and attributed to a painter of Catalan education active in the early years of the 1500s. Remarkable is the cycle of paintings attributable to a Genoese painter from the mid-seventeenth century who drew from Rubens scenes of the life of Christ and the Virgin.