The Museum of Sacred Art, inaugurated on March 15, 1999, was envisioned by the Archpriest Angelo Rigoni (1992-2006) to gather, in one place, liturgical furnishings and ornaments, documents, and memories accumulated over the past three centuries, which were carefully stored in the Sacristy of the Cathedral and in the deposits of the Canonica, so carefully that very few parishioners had been able to view them.
The Archpriest identified a suitable space in the attic of the recently restored Canonica, an ancient place made evocative by the intertwining of old and sturdy walnut and chestnut beams.
The attentive visitor will not miss the high artistic and historical level of this Museum, which can be explained not only by its territorial, cultural, and artistic ties to Veneto and the Venetian Republic, but also by the action of the Archpriests and the patrons of Thiene who, with sensitivity and aesthetic taste, have managed to select renowned and valuable artists and artisans, acquire precious works, and gradually create an important legacy.
The museum consists of a main hall and two small rooms where the works are displayed by type and religious rites; in the center of the main hall, in a large display case, occupies the place of honor a precious and splendid silk canopy, embroidered with gold threads and woven in Venice in the 18th century.
In the first small room, an interesting series of Russian and Eastern icons is exhibited, while the display cases contain the liturgical linen of the Priest and the altar, in pristine cotton and linen, showcasing the valuable and refined embroideries executed by skilled hands in the silence of the convents.
In the second small room, finely crafted sacred vestments, icons, and liturgical objects from different eras, mainly made of silver in Venetian workshops of the 1700s, are displayed. Also of great interest is the 15th-century Panel with the Madonna of the Rose, which according to tradition was found by a farmer while plowing the land and was for centuries an object of veneration by farmers.
