Museum Complex of San Francesco, Art and religious museum in Montefalco, Italy.
The Museum Complex of San Francesco is an art and religious museum in Montefalco containing historical and artistic objects from the region. The complex includes a church building with frescoes and multiple exhibition spaces displaying works from different periods and artistic traditions.
The church was built between 1335 and 1338 by Friars Minor and has defined the complex's appearance since that time. Over the centuries, additional spaces were added to the building to serve as a repository for regional artworks.
The museum's name comes from the Franciscan convent that occupied the site until 1861, when the friars were removed and the convent became a civil hospital. The Pinacoteca holds paintings transferred from suppressed religious houses, including Pietro Rancanelli's 1602 altarpiece from San Clemente, where the donor Fabio Tempestivi, then archbishop of Dubrovnik, is shown in the lower left corner.
The museum is laid out over three levels: the church on the ground floor, the Pinacoteca on the first floor and the Crypt in the basement. The underground work of 2006 opened three vaulted corridors beneath the nave, now used for contemporary art exhibitions, and brought to light the convent's old wine cellars. Visitors move between these levels on foot.
The former ossuary beneath the nave, cleared during work in the 2006 expansion, became three vaulted corridors for contemporary art. The same excavations uncovered the friars' old wine cellars, and part of the cloister columns sacrificed in the late 1600s to enlarge the dormitory is still visible in the third room of those cellars.
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