The Museum of Sacred Art of the Borbera and Spinti Valleys was inaugurated by Bishop S.E. Mons. Martino Canessa in 2009. Housed in the Spinola palace in Rocchetta Ligure, a stately home commissioned by Napoleon IV Spinola around the middle of the 17th century, the museum is located on the main floor, in two of the four rooms overlooking the central hall. The lack of protection of some diocesan areas, without a resident parish priest, made it necessary to plan the opening of a permanent collection in the Valley. Compared to other museum collections, a museum of sacred furnishings has an added value: the fact that art is still at the service of faith and that the educational value inherent in the museum institution is mainly aimed at reconstructing the identity of a community of faithful who commissioned and used the exhibited works in the liturgy.

The work of art in the museum, however decontextualized from its environment, is linked by a red thread to the other objects on display and mentally, outside the museum, to the parishes to which it belongs. The works on display are of different origin, chronology and scope, but all belong to the ecclesiastical buildings of the Borbera and Spinti Valleys. In particular, the collection gathers a significant group of objects from the parish church of Borgo Adorno, deposited in the Castle in the 1970s for security reasons. Particularly significant work is the triptych with Sant’Andrea Apostolo between Saints Sebastian and Rocco by Giovanni Burattino (1604) from the parish church of Sant’Andrea Apostolo in Agneto, a hamlet of Carrega Ligure. Vestments, silver and liturgical objects enrich a museum itinerary where the visitor is guided both by the didactic panels and by the guide of the diocesan volunteers who offer their service for the enhancement of a shared cultural heritage still felt today by the Valley to which it belongs.

Admission with free offer