Crossing the threshold of the Bishop's Palace takes you on a journey through the centuries. The museum's rooms tell the story of the diocese and trace the building's construction phases, with artifacts displayed chronologically following its architectural evolution.
The first room, with its umbrella vault and 14th-century column, houses precious early medieval pieces from the Cathedral and Baptistery: sculptures and epigraphic fragments that take us back to the first centuries of Christianity in Ingauno. Here, Bernardo Reubado painted the entire diocese, a work commissioned by Bishop Pier Francesco Costa, which serves almost as a "visual guide" to the entire museum.
In the second room, corresponding to the fifteenth-century phase, you can admire ceramic materials and paintings from the period, including works by the De Rossi family and details of a polyptych attributed to Luca Baudo, originally in the Cathedral.
The third room, known as the Verzure Room, once perhaps the bishop's bedroom, houses fine pieces of local goldsmithing and reliquary heads of Saints Calocero and Verano. Also here is the panel with Saints Eleutherius and Placidus, dated 1457.
In the next room, located in the tower transformed into a chapel in the fifteenth century, you can admire important frescoes.
The large 16th-century hall houses local and Roman paintings, including the Infant Saint John in the Desert , a copy of the original by Caravaggio, the Martyrdom of Saint Catherine by Guido Reni and The Miracle of Saint Verano by Giovanni Lanfranco.
Finally, in the part of the palace facing the Baptistery, the Tapestry Room displays Brussels artefacts with scenes from the life of Moses and “entrefenetres” by Audenarde, followed by the bishops’ reception rooms and ancient sacred vestments.
Each room, each work, tells not only the artistic history, but also the religious and cultural life of the city through the centuries.
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