Museo dell'Abbazia di Sant'Eutizio

Inside the abbey complex of Sant'Eutizio at Piedivalle, a four-room museum presents monastic art, the surgical tradition of Preci and the material culture of historic pharmacy. Its collections include liturgical silver and embroidery, instruments used by surgeons, and a reconstructed spezieria.

Why it matters

The Ministry of Culture describes how restoration after the 1997 earthquake revealed the museum rooms in the abbey's ancient nucleus. The collection connects the abbey's treasury and monastic history with the surgical school associated with nearby Preci and with historical pharmacy. The complex's layered history reflects the long religious and medical traditions of the Val Castoriana.

What to notice

The Sala del Tesoro contains reliquaries, silver liturgical furnishings, embroideries, embossed leather and a wooden sculpture of Sant'Eutizio attributed to Nicola da Siena. A room presents Abbot Giacomo Crescenzi and his association with the Roman religious world of Saint Philip Neri. The surgical school of Preci is represented through tools and accounts of cataract couching, hernia repair and lithotomy. A reconstructed pharmacy displays medicines and vessels; its laboratory includes a monumental fireplace, stone sink, stoves, mill and mortars.

Context and history

The museum's rooms were revealed during restoration after the 1997 earthquake. Its collections bring together liturgical objects, documents associated with the Crescenzi family and the surgical heritage linked to the Benedictine infirmary and medicinal garden. The eighth-century Passio XII fratrum places Eutizio in the Apennines as an eastern hermit and records devotional traditions associating him with healing and protection against drought. The museum presents the history of faith, medicine and healing at the abbey.