Museo Diocesano "San Riccardo"

Beside the cathedral of Andria, inside the Bishop's Palace, the diocesan museum gathers centuries of sacred art: paintings, sculptures, vestments and reliquaries that trace the faith of the city, under the name of San Riccardo, Andria's patron bishop.

Why it matters

A cathedral keeps its memory in objects as much as in stones, and the Museo Diocesano "San Riccardo" is where Andria's memory is curated. The municipality describes the museum as an important cultural and religious centre that preserves and promotes the artistic and historical heritage of the diocese, installed in the Palazzo Vescovile beside the Duomo. Its foundation decree dates to 20 May 1972, when Bishop Giuseppe Lanave set out to collect and conserve a precious patrimony for his community, and its modern form is recent: after works completed in March 2019 under Bishop Luigi Mansi, the museum was inaugurated on 23 April 2019 and opened to the public that June. The collection offers a view of sacred art in Puglia across the centuries and documents the diocese's history.

What to notice

The holdings include paintings, sculptures, liturgical vestments and objects used in worship, documenting the history of the city and of art in Puglia from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century. Among the collection's notable pieces are tabernacle reliquaries of the 1470s, known as reliquiari a tabella, whose painted panels and small-scale architecture reflect their period.

Context and history

The museum's institutional life spans half a century. Lanave's 1972 decree responded to a practical need, gathering works that had been dispersed across the diocese into a protected collection; the municipality adds that the project reclaimed a disused space and turned it into a place of religious culture. In 2005 Bishop Raffaele Calabro issued a museum regulation and organised the institution into three sections, in Andria, Canosa di Puglia and Minervino Murge, mirroring the united diocese of Andria-Canosa-Minervino. The Andria section occupies the Palazzo Vescovile beside the cathedral. The museum's name honours San Riccardo, bishop of Andria and patron of the city, whose relics rest in the cathedral. The 2019 reopening marked a new phase in the museum's history.