Following up on yesterday’s post about the cathedral of Brixen, Italy, here are some items of interest from the episcopal palace and diocesan museum, including a very nice collection of vestments. Thanks once again to Nicola for sharing his photos with us.
The bishop’s private chapel within the episcopal palace.
A painting which shows the cathedral façade decorated for the visit of Pope Pius VI in 1782.
The cathedral is jointly dedicated to St Cassian of Imola and Our Lady of the Assumption. Cassian was said to have been a Christian schoolmaster who lived at the beginning of the 4th century, and during the persecution of Diocletian, was martyred by his own students, who were allowed to stab him to death with their pens. (Note the tablet with the letters on it in the hand of the child on the left.) The story is attested in the 5th century by the poet Prudentius, who visited his tomb, but the representation of him as a bishop is the result of a hagiographical confusion with another martyr of the same name who was bishop of Todi in the region of Umbria.
A movable altar
Decorative busts of the Patron Saints of Brixen: St Cassian...
St Ingenuinus, an early bishop of nearby Säben (Sabiona), where the episcopal see was formerly located...
and St Albuinus, who translated both the see and the relics of St Ingenuinus to Brixen ca. 1000 A.D.
Some of the vestment collection in the diocesan museum; unfortunately, the items are kept for preservation in glass cases, which sometimes makes for suboptimal photography.
A remarkably well-preserved medieval cope.
Cut-out wooden images of the Apostles, the use of which is unclear.
