Museo di Santo Stefano - Bologna

The museum, located in the complex of Santo Stefano, is laid out in four rooms and ends with the Benda Chapel. Inaugurated in 1916, it was originally set up in the refectory by Francesco Malaguzzi Valeri. The museum acquired its current appearance when it was restructured in 1999. It houses liturgical vestments and reliquaries, paintings and frescoes by the Bolognese, Venetian and Tuscan schools between the 13th and 18th centuries (Simone dei Crocefissi, Michele di Matteo, Alessandro Tiarini), and the reliquary of the head of St Petronius, a magnificent example of goldwork made in 1380 by Jacopo Roseto. The first room has a series of bas-reliefs from different eras, statues and capitals. The second room, reserved for the gold collections, panels and detached frescoes painted between the 14th and the 16th centuries, has the works of Michele di Matteo, Simone dei Crocefissi (Magi Group and Crucifix), Jacopo di Paolo, Giovanni di Zoanello and a Madonna and Child attributed to Lippo di Dalmasio. Displayed in the third room are canvases and altarpieces from the 17th and 18th centuries, and notably the works of Alessandro Tiarini (St Martin Resuscitates the Widow’s Son), Caccianemici and Ansaloni. The room leads to the “Treasure of Santo Stefano”: two small rooms with collections of sacred goldwork and reliquaries, including that of St Petronius by Jacopo da Roseto (1380), relics of the Holy Cross and the Benda relic from the 17th century, and other reliquaries, chalices, pyxes, candelabra, processional crucifixes and monstrances, all of which datable between the 17th and the 19th centuries. The fourth room (Benda Chapel) has the “Sancta Sanctorum” (16th–18th century) with the 18th-century wooden reliquary of St Florian, liturgical vestments from the 18th century, including the mitre of St Isidore, and a detached fresco, likewise dating from the 18th century: the Massacre of the Innocents by Berlinghiero da Lucca. A laboratory for the restoration of goldwork, books, and liturgical vestments and furnishings is annexed to the museum.