Museo della Collegiata di San Candido

Behind the collegiate church of San Candido, in a building whose east wing dates to the tenth century, the chapter museum keeps the treasury of the duomo, illuminated manuscripts and an archive of more than a thousand parchments — the written and precious memory of Tyrol's oldest collegiate foundation.

Why it matters

The museum, archive and library belong to the collegiate chapter, founded in 769 and influential across the upper Val Pusteria. The collection includes the cathedral treasury, sacred art and manuscripts, and is associated with the oldest collegiate foundation in Tyrol. Most displayed works were made by local artists and commissioned by canons or San Candido families.

What to notice

The treasury includes a fourteenth-century reliquary cross of rock crystal, golden monstrances and silver shrines. The archive holds more than a thousand parchments, several hundred manuscripts, early prints and files, including a large collection of texts by the medieval philosopher Ramon Llull.

The collections include prehistoric vases, Roman coins, carved processional sculptures, embroidered vestments and a historic library with decorated parlours. The former chapter granary’s east section dates to the tenth century; its west wing was built in 1382. The facade bears ornamental frescoes from 1550 by artists of the Bressanone school.

Context and history

The museum grew directly out of the collegiate chapter that ran San Candido from its foundation in 769, first as a Benedictine monastery and from around 1143 as a community of canons. For years it operated across two sites, the Franciscan monastery and the chapter house; in 2023 the Franciscan venue closed and the institution was reorganised as the MIK — the Museum im Kapitel — concentrating the collection in the old chapter building at Via Atto. The chapter in the museum's name refers to the community of canons whose treasury, books and archives are held in the seven exhibition rooms.