Museo Diocesano e del Codex

Behind Rossano's cathedral, the Museo Diocesano e del Codex guards one of the great survivors of late antiquity: the Codex Purpureus Rossanensis, a Gospel book written on purple-dyed vellum and inscribed since 2015 in the UNESCO Memory of the World register. Around it gathers a diocesan collection that traces the city's Byzantine, Renaissance and baroque chapters.

Why it matters

The Codex is the museum's central work. Dated between the fifth and sixth centuries, it is one of the oldest surviving illuminated Gospel books: 188 folios, 376 pages of vellum dyed the reddish purple reserved for the Byzantine imperial family, carrying the Gospel of Matthew complete and nearly all of Mark. Fourteen full-page miniatures show scenes from the life of Christ, from the raising of Lazarus to Christ's trial before Pilate. Most scholars place its production in a Byzantine scriptorium of the eastern empire, probably in Syria, and its arrival in Rossano is placed, by differing theories, between the eighth and tenth centuries. The manuscript went to Rome for conservation between 2012 and its return in 2016, and the museum rebuilt its Codex rooms around that event.

What to notice

The museum splits into two sections joined by a corridor. The Codex rooms include two antechambers with video projections and touch screens; the manuscript itself rests in a purpose-built case, with a continuous high-definition projection of its miniatures close by, presenting the illuminations at full scale. In the diocesan section, the itinerary moves from Byzantine Rossano through Renaissance and mannerist-and-baroque rooms to a room devoted to the cult of the Madonna Achiropita, the city's own icon. The collection includes the silver bust of the Achiropita, the Cretan Andreas Pavias's icon of the Pieta painted in 1499, wooden sculptures by Vincenzo Zaffino, and liturgical silver including the ring of Saint Nilo and a monstrance known as the Greek sphere, alongside chalices, reliquaries and vestments from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Context and history

Founded under Archbishop Giovanni Rizzo and inaugurated on 18 October 1952, this was the first diocesan museum in Calabria and among the earliest in Italy. It began as two rooms in the archbishop's palace, holding the cathedral treasury, and grew through transfers from city churches, the commune and private donations. Reworking under Archbishop Antonio Cantisani came in 1977; from 1988 two wings of the palace behind the cathedral were converted, and the present seat opened on 9 December 2000 under Archbishop Andrea Cassone. In 2007 Archbishop Santo Marcianò launched the Codex's UNESCO candidacy; restoration began in 2012 at the ICRCPAL institute in Rome, the Memory of the World inscription followed on 9 October 2015 under Archbishop Giuseppe Satriano, and on 3 July 2016 the renewed museum reopened with the Codex home.