Collection
The works on display, which cover a chronological span from the thirteenth through the nineteenth centuries, bear witness to the rich local production of art and crafts and its complex relation to the bordering cultures of the Veneto, Lombardy, and Austria.
The museum itinerary presents a selection of its most meaningful collections, organized in specific sections according to chronology, author, or cultural area. Some of the rooms are devoted to single themes, such as the iconography of Council of Trento.
For painting, the works on display offer an exhaustive overview of the local production from the Middle Ages to Neoclassicism. The wooden sculpture section presents altars with doors, of the type done in the north, made by the most important workshops operating in the diocese between the fourteenth and the sixteenth century. A small room contains a display of rare and valuable illuminated manuscripts belonging to the cathedral.
A rich collection of liturgical vestments documents the changes in the forms of liturgical vestments and the evolution of decorative styles from the fourteenth to the nineteenth century. The cathedral treasury displays precious examples of the jeweller's art from the twelfth to the nineteenth century. Especially fine, too, is the famous series of Flemish tapestries of the Passion of Christ, woven in Brussels by Pieter van Aelst.