Opened on the occasion of the Jubilee of 2000, the Diocesan Museum covers almost 2,000 square meters in the Halls of the Bishop Palace. It collects precious works of painting, sculpture and goldsmithry, codes and incunaboli (books lacking front covers, printed in the 15th century when the art of printing was at its dawn), sacred vestments coming from the territory of the Diocese of Padua. Exhibited in this space according to chronological criteria and by sections, the works attest to the cultural wealth, the artistic sensitiveness and the deep faith of the Church in Padua since the centuries preceding the year 1000 AD to the present.
The itinerary starts from the Room San Gregorio Barbarigo where we find a number of manuscripts, such as the 14th-century Antifonari of the Cathedral, remarkable for their artistic similarity to Giotto’s paintings in the Scrovegni Chapel. The 14th Century is represented by a great number of artworks by famous artists, such as the Reliquary of the Cross in golden silver, made in Denmark; among the paintings the beautiful Madonna with Child by Giusto de' Menabuoi and a fresco coming from an external wall of the Baptistery representing the Portrait of a young boy, probably from the Da Carrara family. The series of seven tables picturing some episodes from the life of Saint Sebastian is very interesting; it was painted in 1367 by Nicoletto Semitecolo, a collaborator of Guariento.
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