Photo: Marica Massaro · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Museo Orientale e Santuario di Santa Maria dell'Oriente

Museum in the 16th-century sanctuary of the Madonna dell’Oriente, with Egyptian, Oriental and Ethiopian antiquities, Byzantine icons, votive offerings and coins.

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About the museum

The sanctuary stands about 3 km from the centre of Tagliacozzo, on a hill above the Imele valley. Its main treasure is the panel of the Madonna Odigitria, inspired by a Byzantine model and probably from the first half of the 13th century. The church of Santa Maria de Orienna is documented from the early 14th century; it was reworked between the 17th and 18th centuries and radically transformed in 1868. The Friars Minor (Franciscans) settled in the adjoining convent in 1896. The 1915 earthquake seriously damaged the church, which was rebuilt between 1931 and 1932.

Since 1968 some rooms of the complex have housed the museum, which grew out of the collections of Father Gabriele Giamberardini, who worked in Egypt from 1950 to 1970, and of Father Tommaso Casale, a native of Tagliacozzo and founder of the museum, who died in 1999. At the beginning of the 2000s the rooms were fitted out with modern conservation technologies, and the renovated spaces reopened in 2003.

The collections include Egyptian, Oriental and Ethiopian antiquities, Byzantine icons, votive offerings, sacred furnishings and coins from the Near East. A numismatic and philatelic collection and the rare 16th-century books of the sanctuary library are currently being catalogued.

Highlights

Icon of the Madonna dell’Oriente from the 13th century
Egyptian, Oriental and Ethiopian antiquities
Byzantine icons
Votive offerings and sacred furnishings
Coins from the Near East