Museo Diocesano Giovanni Tarantini

Housed in Brindisi's Baroque church of Santa Teresa, the Giovanni Tarantini Diocesan Museum brings together objects from the archdiocese's history. Its collection includes a thirteenth-century silver reliquary of Saint Theodore, an Egyptian serpentine-marble hydria and a 1219 charter bearing the autograph signature of Frederick II.

Why it matters

The museum preserves objects connected with Brindisi's worship, civic history and relations with the imperial court. The parchment of 1219, the Privilegium Imperatoris Friderici II, records the emperor's confirmation of privileges for Archbishop Pellegrino d'Asti. The silver reliquary holds the remains of Saint Theodore, the city's patron. Together, these objects connect the diocese's history with Brindisi's role as an important port.

What to notice

The thirteenth-century reliquary of San Teodoro d'Amasea is a casket covered in embossed silver plaques; a silk cloth associated with the relics is also preserved. A serpentine-marble hydria made in Egypt is linked by tradition to vessels used at the wedding feast at Cana. The parchment charter of 1219 preserves Frederick II's autograph signature and confirms rights granted to Archbishop Pellegrino d'Asti.

Other objects include a gold-ground textile known as oro di Cipro, liturgical furnishings and seventeenth-century paintings of Lorenzo da Brindisi.

Context and history

The church of Santa Teresa was commissioned in 1671 for the Discalced Carmelites. The diocesan museum opened there in June 2012 and was named for Giovanni Tarantini, a nineteenth-century Brindisi canon and archaeologist associated with the recovery of important local inscriptions. In January 2021, the archbishop established a diocesan museum network that includes Santa Teresa, San Paolo Eremita and the Scuole Pie.

The Santa Teresa section closed in 2022 for urgent restoration and received new technological and multimedia installations. It reopened in March 2024 after work undertaken with the Soprintendenza and the diocesan cultural office.