after a record 2022, a new year under the banner of Europe
The first year of events for the Sixth Centenary of the Collegiate Church of Castiglione Olona has ended happily: a record year in terms of the number of visitors to the Museum, which exceeded 10,000, and in terms of participation in over 50 events organized between conferences, presentations, concerts, liturgical celebrations, shows, charitable initiatives, guided tours, activities for children.
The Sixth Centenary, launched in January 2022 600 years after the foundation bull, will continue until spring 2025, anniversary of the consecration of the Collegiate. A wide-ranging, not only in terms of time: the protagonist of 2023 will in fact be a gaze that from Castiglione Olona will expand towards Europe.
It was Cardinal Branda Castiglioni himself who opened up to Europe, founder of the Collegiate and soul of the transformation in the humanistic-Renaissance sense of the whole village: he repeatedly crossed Europe to participate in councils, carry out uncommon tasks and conduct diplomatic missions closely contact with some protagonists of his time, from Pope Martin V to Sigismund of Luxembourg, King of Hungary and later Emperor. From 1412 to 1424 he was bishop of Veszprém, in Hungary, which in 2023 will be the European Capital of Culture. Following Branda Castiglioni’s many movements on the roads of Europe, which amaze not only in relation to the transport possibilities of the time, shows a vast geography of his service: Cologne, Liège, Vilnius, Buda, Vienna, Constance, Regensburg, Nuremberg, Mainz, Krakow, Basel these are just some of the cities where its presence is documented.
From Europe the cardinal brought extraordinary gifts to his Castiglione Olona, such as the Flemish chandelier of the Collegiata, but also personalities such as John of Olmutz, Moravian priest of vast culture, to whom he entrusted the newborn grammar and singing school of the village and the drafting of the so-called curriculum vitae, the latest and most complete narration of the cardinal’s life, exhibited for the first time in 2022.
The exhibition “MAGI IN MOSTRA Christmas with guests at the Collegiate Museum” continues until 29 January.
The exhibition consists of the dialogue between the panel depicting the Holy Family with Saint Catherine of Siena in the Museum and a lively sixteenth-century Adoration of the Magi, on temporary loan. The possibility of comparing these works, probably born in the same Venetian-Cretan workshop at the end of the sixteenth century, is due to the generosity of a collector who also had the Adoration of the Magi restored for the occasion, never before exhibited at the public.
Anyone wishing to follow the lectio magistralis of Msgr. Timothy Verdonwhich inaugurated the Sixth Centenary a year ago, or review some events organized in 2022, can connect to the YouTube channel of the Collegiate Museum.
TIMETABLES
From Wednesday to Saturday 9.30 – 12.30 / 14.30 – 17.30. Sunday and holidays 10.00 – 13.00 / 15.00 – 18.00. Tuesday open by reservation for groups. Monday closed
Last access half an hour before closing
How to access: reservations required only for groups (> 10 people); mask recommended in small spaces (Baptistery and Museum).