From Portugal to Spain. In the middle of December, the Junta de Galicia (the collegial governing body of Galicia) signed an agreement with the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation of Lisbon and the Custody of the Holy Land to take the exhibition “ Treasures from Kings: Masterpieces from the Terra Sancta Museum” to Santiago de Compostela,.
Agreement with the City of Culture of Galicia
The exhibition – which can be visited until 26 February at the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon – will be hosted, from March to August 2024 in the Città della Cultura of Galicia, a cultural complex which has been open since 2011, established on the initiative of the Junta de Galicia with the aim of creating a “multifunction, multidisciplinary and all-inclusive space, which contributes to cultural interaction.”
The Director of the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, António Filipe Pimentel; the director of the Cultural Heritage Dept. of the Custody of the Holy Land, fr. Stéphane Milóvitch, and the president of the Scientific Committee of the Terra Sancta Museum, Beatrix Saule took part in the ceremony of signatures and presentation of the project,
A unique occasion
For the public in Galicia, it will be “a unique occasion to contemplate the works that hve been preserved for centuries by the Custody of the Holy Land” the Councillor for Culture, Education, Vocational Training and University of the Galician government, Román Rodríguez, emphasized. They are pieces of extraordinary value, donated to the Custody by the European royal households to express their devotion to the Holy Places and support the Custody of the Holy Land: religious objects, jewellery, ornaments and sacred vestments, codices, canopies, lamps and many other items, a heritage that the Franciscans have preserved and catalogued.
The exhibition “Treasures from Kings” is “one of the main exhibition projects of the Gaiás Centre Museum for 2024,” Rodríguez continued, “and Santiago de Compostela will be “the only place in Space where all these works, little known to the general public and of an exceptional historical and artistic value, can be contemplated.” The exhibition also allows going over the history of the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre and the role of the Custody of the Holy Land.
In Galicia, the exhibition will be completed by archaeological pieces, paintings and other unique works from Galician institutions such as the Holy Land Museum of St Francis’s Convent in Compostela and the Museum of the Pilgrimage, as well as from institutions outside Galicia.
New horizons
In addition to Lisbon and Compostela, two other destinations, in Europe and the United States, will join the international circuit of the Exhibition in 2024 and 2025, to be announced soon. These works will then form the body of the historical collection of the Terra Sancta Museum, which should open its doors to the public in 2026 the Old City of Jerusalem.
Marinella Bandini
