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Sacred Art - Rooms VI and VII

Rooms VI and VII make up the “most precious” section of the museum course because it is entirely dedicated to the goldsmith’s art for liturgical use. It is from various churches of the Marsica, whose production flourished in Abruzzo, between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, in the prestigious schools of Guardiagrele, L’Aquila, Sulmona and Teramo. A large number of exhibited works of art are from the Museo di Palazzo Venezia of Rome, where they were brought and temporarily deposited after the disasterous earthquake of 1915; the goldsmith’s art, belonging to different periods, concerns, above all, the Sulmonese school; there are also examples of schools of L’Aquila, Rome and several workshops.

The sixth room hosts works of art which include an ample period of time which goes from the XIII to the XVII century. In the first display case, next to two archaic processional crosses, there is a stauroteca of the XIII century, a valuable work of silver, pearls and precious stones which, according to the tradition, was part of the treasure donated to the church of S:Pietro di Alba Fucens by Queen Giovanna I of Naples. Considered the oldest specimen of goldsmith’s art in the Marsica, it is a precious testimony of Byzantine art, a work of art probably of skilled craftsmen from the Orient who worked at the monastery of Montecassino.

In the second display case, besides the processional cross of Cese, there is the chalice and the paten of the XIV century from the church of S.Giovanni di Celano; works of art of the school of Sulmona, they make up an example of the pleasant sythesis of the workmanship of silver using enamel decorations. On the chalice there are three coats of arms of the Berardi family, counts of Celano from the X to the XV century. The famous Croce dei Orsini, dated 1334 is in the centre of the room. It is denominated in that way because it was commissioned by a member of the prestigious family whose coat of arms appears several times on the cross. The work of art, an authentic masterpiece of the art of the goldsmith, is characterized by the richness of the figurative repertoire, by the elegant workmanship of the decorations, by the high quality of the enamels and by the modelled plastic of the figures.

Following the museum course, in the fourth display case, we can admire a refined and elegant silver thurible of the XV century, a”pace” of the XVI century testimony of a liturgy which no longer exists and is unknown to us, and a precious wooden and ivory case from the XV century attributed to the workshop of the Embriachi, ivory sculptors who worked in Florence, Lombardy and Venice. By resuming the use of Carthusians, they inserted their ivory reliefs in carvings of valuable wood.

In the display case there is also a processional cross from the XVII century from a school of L’Aquila, which comes from the church of S.Lucia di Magliano dei Marsi.

In the last display case there are three astylar crosses from the XVI century among which we can see the one that bears the coat of arms of the Piccolomini, from the church of S.Giovanni di Celano. Leaning on the walls we can admire valuable frescoes which are from the Palazzo Ducale di Tagliacozzo temporarily exhibited in the rooms of the Museo; commissioned by the Orsini in the XV century, the paintings decorated the open-gallery of the Palazzo; due to their poor condition of preservation they were “strappate” (torn off) and remounted on reinforced plastic panels. The paintings, of a high artistic level, depict famous personages arranged in pairs in the conch niches defined by decorated pillars with an ornamental candelabrum motif.

The seventh room, of modest size, was originally used as the Piccolomini’s private chapel. It hosts only two display cases. In the first one there is a monstrance, dated 1885 which reproposes the model called “a sole” with a rich figurative repertoire typical of the XVIII century. In the centre, a processional cross of the XV century from the church of S.Nicola di Alba Fucens is on display. It repeats the traditional iconograph and it is difficult to attribute it for the lack of pushers or other distinctive elements which consent to identify the centre of production. In the same display case there is also a silver thurible, dated 1779, which presents typology and decorations widely used in the sacred furnishings of the XVIII century.

In the second display case there is a thurible of a Roman school of the XVII century where the chamber seal of Rome (decussate parasol and key) and the one of the silversmith Antonio Giordani are stamped. Instead in the centre there is a big processional cross of remarkable artistic interest, carried out at a school of Sulmona, as the two different types of SUL seals which are visibile on the lamina demonstrate.