Museo del Duomo (Museo d'Arte Sacra)

A small museum gathers what the walled town's churches could no longer keep safe: a genuine Jacopo Bassano of 1537, late-medieval sculpture, gilded vestments and painted panels. Reopened in 2021 with fully renewed rooms, the Cathedral Museum is where Cittadella keeps its oldest art indoors.

Why it matters

The museum took shape from 1986 as an act of rescue: its stated purpose was to protect, promote and make known the artistic treasures of the parish church of the walled town and of other churches across the territory that could no longer guarantee their security. Its collection ranges across painting, sculpture and the applied arts, and it is anchored by a handful of works of real weight — above all "Cena in Emmaus", dated 1537, a documented masterwork of Jacopo Bassano's early maturity, and a "Compianto sul Cristo morto" attributed to Andrea da Murano at the end of the fifteenth century. After years of closure for work, the museum reopened on 22 May 2021 with its exhibition rooms completely rearranged — an art-news milestone for a collection the town's own portal introduces as exceptional in level and significance.

What to notice

• "Cena in Emmaus" (1537): a large Kitchen-and-Christ scene associated with Jacopo da Ponte's early reputation, painted as the Bassano workshop style — animals, servants and luminous genre detail around a Gospel subject — was taking shape.
• The "Compianto sul Cristo morto" attributed to Andrea da Murano, a Venetian painter of the late 1400s.
• The ancient statue of Sant'Antonio Abate, carved between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and preserved from the first church inside the walls.
• Liturgical objects, vestments and applied arts that document how a parochial community used its treasures.
• Works the parish lists as kept in the Duomo complex include a "Flagellazione" attributed to Palma il Giovane and a Venetian-school "Adorazione dei Magi".

Context and history

The museum's story mirrors the town's: works that had accumulated in the Duomo and rural churches of the Cittadellese were concentrated where climate, security and curatorial care could be guaranteed. The building beside the Duomo incorporates remains of the medieval church that preceded the present one, linking the collection to the site's earlier sacred architecture.