Museo Lapidario

The Lapidary Museum of Monte Sant'Angelo displays more than two hundred carved stones in the Lombard gallery beneath the Sanctuary of San Michele Arcangelo. Its collection includes architectural fragments, liturgical objects and the signed ambo of Acceptus, dated 1041.

Why it matters

The collection brings together sculptural fragments from the sanctuary's excavations and from medieval monuments in Monte Sant'Angelo and its surroundings. Their display in the gallery links the carved objects with the wider history of the shrine and the buildings that contributed to its collection.

What to notice

The ambo attributed to Acceptus is dated 1041 and includes an eagle-shaped lectern. Other works include a liturgical fountain from Santa Maria di Pulsano, a twelfth-century base used as a paschal candlestick and holy-water stoup, and an architrave carved with an angel. The collection also includes pieces associated with San Pietro, the Baptistery of San Giovanni in Tumba and the Celestini complex.

Context and history

The Lombard gallery is a corridor of eight communicating barrel-vaulted bays, about sixty metres long, uncovered during excavations led by archpriest Nicola Quitadamo between 1949 and 1955. The passage had been abandoned in the second half of the thirteenth century as the sanctuary was rebuilt. The lapidary display was rearranged in 2015, bringing objects from the sanctuary and other local monuments into a single interpretive sequence. The sanctuary complex is part of the UNESCO-listed serial site “Longobards in Italy: Places of the Power.”