Ferrara Cathedral Museum, Religious art museum in historic San Romano church, Ferrara, Italy

The Ferrara Cathedral Museum occupies a converted church building and displays religious artworks, sculptures, and sacred objects spanning multiple periods. The rooms feature paintings, decorated manuscripts, organ panels, and tapestries that trace artistic development across centuries.

The museum was founded in 1929 through the collaboration of Archbishop Ruggero Bovelli and podestà Renzo Ravenna, with a decisive contribution from Giuseppe Agnelli, then director of the Ariostea Library. Its opening came a few years before the cathedral's eighth-centenary celebrations and was tied to the founding of the Opera del Duomo. In 2000 it moved to the former church of San Romano, a Benedictine convent site from the 10th century.

The collection reflects how Ferrara's religious community valued art and craftsmanship in their sacred spaces. Visitors can see how medieval and Renaissance artisans created objects that people used in daily worship.

The museum is at Via San Romano 1, a short walk from the cathedral of San Giorgio. Rooms are arranged around the cloister of the former San Romano church, with the ticket office by the cloister and the first room on the floor above it. The second room occupies the former sacristy, reached from the cloister, and the third is the church hall itself.

The eight 16th-century tapestries were woven in Ferrara under the Fleming Johannes Karcher, from cartoons by Garofalo and Camillo Filippi, and show the stories of Saint George and Saint Maurelius. Look also for the 13th-century capital with scenes of Saint John the Baptist, which came from the cathedral's destroyed Porta dei Mesi.