Museo dell'Abbazia di Novalesa

Archaeological museum in the former refectory of the Benedictine abbey of Novalesa, with Roman and early medieval finds and a section on book restoration.

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About the museum

The museum opened in 2009 in the rooms of the monks’ former refectory and in the portico overlooking the former novices’ courtyard of the abbey of Santi Pietro e Andrea. It displays the most significant finds from the excavation campaigns carried out in the monastic complex since 1978, as well as two sections devoted to monastic history and to book restoration.

In the portico are placed the largest stone materials, such as Roman column drums, a milestone, capitals and fragments of the abbey church, together with Roman bricks. The first room houses the section on book restoration, an art still practised in the workshop attached to the abbey, and the section on the history of monasticism, with reproductions of the foundation deed and of the Chronicon Novaliciense, and pottery and glass from the Late Middle Ages to the 18th century. The third room, in the former refectory, gathers finds from the late Imperial period to the Gothic age: fragments of statues, funerary inscriptions, sarcophagi, a Lombard bone comb and fragments of frescoes attributed to Anthoyne de Lhonye (second half of the 15th century).

The abbey was founded in 726 by Abbone, a Frankish lord of Susa and the Moriana, and was destroyed by the Saracens in 906. Today it belongs to the Città metropolitana di Torino and is inhabited by a Benedictine community. In the park there are four medieval chapels, including that of Sant’Eldrado, with fresco cycles from the late 11th century.

Highlights

Finds from the excavations in the abbey since 1978
Roman column drums and a milestone in the portico
Section on book restoration
Reproduction of the Chronicon Novaliciense
15th-century fragments of frescoes attributed to Anthoyne de Lhonye