Museum of the Basilica of San Michele Arcangelo, Religious and art museum in Monte Sant'Angelo, Italy
The Museum of the Basilica of San Michele Arcangelo is a religious and art museum set within the San Michele Sanctuary complex in Monte Sant'Angelo, in southern Italy. It holds a collection of stone materials, sculptures, paintings, and religious artifacts gathered from the shrine and the surrounding area over many years.
The museum's stone collection is housed in two crypts, one Byzantine and one Lombard, found beneath the basilica during excavations between 1949 and 1960. These digs also brought to light inscriptions that helped establish the basilica's founding date. The devotional collection opened to the public in 1989, displaying objects donated over the centuries by pilgrims, popes, emperors and bishops.
The museum holds carved stones marked with images and symbols from different periods, giving a direct sense of how people expressed their faith over the centuries. Pilgrims still visit the sanctuary on feast days, following a tradition that has drawn people to Monte Sant'Angelo for generations.
The lapidary section occupies two crypts, one Byzantine and one Lombard, found beneath the basilica during excavations carried out between 1949 and 1960. Visitors reach them through the sanctuary complex, so allow time to move between the devotional rooms and these underground spaces. The two collections are thematic: devotional objects and stone inscriptions.
The museum did not officially open until 1989, even though the excavations that shaped its collection were carried out decades earlier in the 1950s. Part of the museum is literally underground, built into rooms discovered beneath the existing shrine during those digs.
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