Museo della Pieve e Tesoro del Duomo

The Museum of the Pieve and Cathedral Treasury in Gemona occupies the fourteenth-century Canonica vecchia beside the Duomo. Its collections include a Gothic monstrance by Nicolò Lionello, illuminated choir books, liturgical objects and a baptismal register begun in 1379.

Why it matters

The museum preserves the heritage of Gemona's pieve, the mother parish from which the medieval town grew. The treasury's Gothic goldwork includes the monstrance delivered by Lionello in 1435, although another catalogue gives 1434. The collection also holds what is described as the oldest known baptismal register, with entries from 1379, beginning with Tomasina, daughter of Ludovico di Altaneto. The museum opened in autumn 2006 after the 1976 earthquake interrupted an earlier project.

What to notice

The tall Lionello monstrance combines reliefs and filigree and includes figures of Justice, Charity and Fortitude. The manuscript room contains seven parchment choir books written and illuminated in Padua in the 1260s–1280s; their miniatures include an early portrait of Saint Anthony. Other objects include fourteenth-century reliquaries with rock-crystal cups, bronzes from the workshop of Girolamo Campagna, chalices associated with Pius X and John Paul II, and embroidered altar frontals made by Cassandra and Antonia Vintani in 1854 and 1856.

Context and history

The museum occupies the Canonica vecchia, built in 1360 and restored to house the pieve's collections and historical archive. The museum installation was designed by Gian Paolo Della Marina. Its sculpture collection includes works by local and Venetian masters from the late thirteenth through seventeenth centuries, including mastro Johannes, Giovanni Griglio, Girolamo Paleario, Sebastiano da Rio and Girolamo Comuzzo.