Cathedral Museum

Opened in 2004, the Cathedral Museum is located near St. Mary's. It houses a part of the Cathedral  treasury , which includes  some bequests left by the archibishops  of  the Church of Cagliari,  donations and numerous silver liturgical objects such as chalices , ciborium , monstrance , processional crosses , crucifixes , as well as wooden statues and paintings. Among the most important  there are  "The Altarpiece of Beneficed" , a double triptych alterpiece of Catalan type , made around 1527 in Stampace, in the workshop of Pietro  Cavaro , "The grief over the Dead Christ", a group of seven statues, date back to the second half of the fifteenth or early sixteenth century and   "The Triptych of Clement VII" , attributed to the fifteenth-century Flemish painter Rogier van der Weyden , which  is linked to unique historical events .  It was stolen , like many other works of art and relics , during the Sack of Rome in 1527 , then it was  abandoned after a storm, by  the Landsknechte on the run  from Gaeta. Finally, it was found in Cagliari and returned to its owner , Giulio de ' Medici, known as Pope Clement VII . In 1531 , as a sign of gratitude , the Pope gave to the  Archbishop of Cagliari  the triptych and  the Holy Thorn , that was stolen too , with the obligation to expose them every year in the Cathedral during  the  celebration for the Assumption of Mary. The painting consists of three panels: in the middle is represented the Pieta , with  the Virgin of Sorrows on the left and  Christ crowned with thorns on the right. On  the left side panel is portraied the Madonna with Child and  St Anne , while on the right  St. Margaret and the Dragon.