Photo: SonyGM · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Museo delle anime del Purgatorio

Small museum next to the sacristy of the Church of the Sacro Cuore del Suffragio, with documents and objects linked to the alleged “fire prints” of the dead.

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About the museum

The museum is housed in a room adjacent to the sacristy of the neo-Gothic church of the Sacro Cuore di Gesù in Prati, also known as the “little Duomo of Milan”. The collection was created at the wish of the French missionary Victor Jouet, who was struck by an event on 15 November 1897: on that date a mysterious fire broke out in the chapel of the Rosary and, while the altar painting remained intact, a suffering face is said to have appeared on the wall amid the flames. A photographic reproduction of that image is displayed in the museum.

Father Jouet travelled across Europe gathering testimonies, documents and signs of various kinds that he believed were proof of contact between the dead and the living. Ecclesiastical authorities rejected much of the material because the evidence of authenticity was insufficient.

The collection today comprises documents and relics, such as cassocks, breviaries, nightshirts and wooden tablets, kept in display cases and linked to the so-called “fire prints”. The testimonies date mostly from the 18th and 19th centuries.

Highlights

Fire prints attributed to the dead on books, fabrics and wooden tablets
Photographic reproduction of the face that appeared in the 1897 fire
Victor Jouet collection with testimonies from the 18th and 19th centuries
Located in the neo-Gothic Sacro Cuore church in Prati