Diocesan Museum of Camerino

History of the Diocesan Museum of Camerino

The museum was created in the 1960s on the initiative of Don Giacomo Boccanera, its founder and first director. He gathered works from the churches of the area. The year 2025 marked sixty years since its first opening.

Its home is the Palazzo Arcivescovile, built by Bishop Berardo Bongiovanni (1574) on the town walls and on medieval structures, which it partly incorporates. The museum has been closed before: damaged by the 1997 earthquake, it was reorganized and enlarged and reopened on December 8, 2004.

The 2016 earthquake struck the palazzo again, causing serious damage. Restoration was completed in October 2025. The palazzo and the museum reopened after nine years of closure. The current layout offers a new museum vision.

What to see in the Diocesan Museum of Camerino

The route is organized in four sections: frescoes and panel paintings, sculptures, paintings on canvas, and goldsmith work and church furnishings. The works are arranged by type and period.

The first section presents panel paintings, frescoes and processional banners from the 13th to the 15th century. It traces the 15th-century painters of Camerino: Giovanni di Piermatteo Boccati, Giovanni Angelo d'Antonio and Girolamo di Giovanni. Among the sculptures are works by Lucantonio Barberetti da Camerino and the 14th-century Crucifix of Ussita, which survived the 2016 earthquake. At the center of the route is the Madonna della Misericordia from the Cathedral, a 14th-century wooden sculpture much loved by local people.

The section of paintings on canvas covers the period from the 16th to the 18th century. Here are works by Camillo Bagazzotti, Luca Signorelli, Valentin de Boulogne and Giambattista Tiepolo. The Tiepolo is the Apparition of the Virgin to Saint Philip Neri, painted for the church of San Filippo. There are three canvases by Valentin de Boulogne. They escaped the earthquake because they were on loan to the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Two of them depict Saint John the Baptist and Saint Jerome.

Among the museum's works, a collection of processional crosses from Abruzzo from the 15th-18th centuries deserves attention. Other rooms hold 16th-century tabernacles, pyrographed leather altar frontals, small 14th-century frescoes and sacred vestments.

Visiting the Diocesan Museum of Camerino

The museum has been open to the public again since fall 2025. Opening hours are listed in the information box on this page, and it is worth checking them before setting out, since they can change on holidays.

The route follows the four sections, from medieval panel paintings to goldsmith work. The museum was created to tell the story of the diocese's sacred art and the passage from medieval popular devotion to Baroque refinement.

Camerino is at 661 m above sea level, and in winter it gets frequent and often heavy snowfall. In summer temperatures are milder than on the plain. The museum can be visited in any season.

Where the Diocesan Museum of Camerino is located

The museum is in Camerino, in the province of Macerata, inside the Palazzo Arcivescovile. The building wraps around two sides of Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II, now known as Piazza Cavour. The museum occupies the main part of the piano nobile (main floor), on the north and west sides.

Camerino is a hill town at the center of the mountain area of the province. The Sibillini massif closes it off to the south, while Monte San Vicino lies to the north.

Around the Diocesan Museum of Camerino

Other buildings of interest are concentrated in the historic center of Camerino. Many were damaged by the 2016 earthquake. Several churches in the center, such as San Filippo, Santa Maria in Via and the Cathedral, remained unsafe for a long time after the earthquake, while the Basilica of San Venanzio reopened in December 2019. Before including them in an itinerary, check whether they are accessible.

The Palazzo Ducale, completed in the second half of the 15th century by Giulio Cesare da Varano, is home to the University, but it has been unsafe since the 2016 earthquake. The Rocca Borgesca was built for Cesare Borgia in 1503 to control the town from the southwest. Outside the center, at Renacavata, stands the Capuchin convent. The convent is considered the cradle of the Capuchin order and houses the Museo storico dei Cappuccini.

The former convent of San Domenico, which grew between 1250 and 1500, was the home of the civic art gallery and museum and has been unusable since 2016. For the town's other museums, see the page on the Civic and Diocesan Museums in Camerino. An overview of the area is on the page about museums in the Sibillini Mountains.