Museo del Santuario della Beata Vergine della Ghiara

Beside the basilica that has drawn pilgrims since the Renaissance, a small civic museum keeps the objects Reggio Emilia gave its miraculous Madonna: ducal candleholders, a plague-thanksgiving crown, the preparatory sinopia of the sacred image. Its collection brings together centuries of goldwork, vestments and devotional objects.

Why it matters

The museum is one of eight sites of the Musei Civici network, and the only one embedded in a working sanctuary. Founded in 1982 by the fabric committee of the temple with the civic museums, it keeps the liturgical and devotional gifts accumulated around the fresco of the Madonna della Ghiara.

What to notice

The sinopia in the teaching room is the preparatory drawing for the Madonna fresco, executed in 1573 by Giovanni Bianchi, called il Bertone, after a design by Lelio Orsi. The first room contains the candelieri ducali, commissioned by Duke Francesco I d'Este of Modena and made in Rome between 1631 and 1634 by the goldsmiths Gianfrancesco Frangi and Marco Marchi for the Madonna's altar on feast days. The third room holds the corona del 1674, given by the community in thanks for the city's preservation from plague, beside the sanctuary's finest vestments. The Treasure room gathers reliquaries, ex-voto and sacred vessels.

Context and history

The museum occupies the ground floor of the wing between the two cloisters of the former Servite convent, whose community settled in Reggio Emilia in 1313. Napoleon's suppression of 1797 dispersed the convent; the city bought the complex in 1868, installing a bakery for the poor and school rooms, and the Servites returned only 130 years later. Restoration ahead of the Jubilee 2000 revived the great cloister of 1715.