Treasure Museum

The Museum of the Treasure opens inside the Cathedral of San Lorenzo and its underground rooms are a fascinating casket of works of gold and antique silverware .

The treasure became a museum in 1892 , on the occasion of the fourth centenary of the discovery of America, when it was decided to give this precious heritage a permanent home, making it permanently visible to the public. The spaces of the museum as it is known today were designed by the architect Franco Albini and are - still today - considered as a masterpiece in international museology.

The Sacro Catino , the Byzantine Croce degli Zaccaria, the objects related to the cult of St. John the Baptist such as the precious chalcedony plate, the arch - reliquary known as Barbarossa and the fifteenth-century processional ark, as well as some monumental silver works are of particular importance. and seventeenth-century . The objects on display, about fifty, are linked by origin to three strands pertaining respectively to the Municipality of Genoa, the Protection of the Chapel of San Giovanni Battista and the Chapter of the Metropolitan Church.

Some of the works exhibited here are veritable "documents-monuments" of the city's history. First of all the so-called Sacro Catino , which for a long time was considered to be emerald and for centuries was celebrated as a relic of the Last Supper.