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Museo Diocesano e Gallerie del Tiepolo (Diocesan Museum and Tiepolo Galleries)

Since 1995 the Diocesan Museum and Tiepolo Galleries have been located in the 18th century archbishop’s palace, once the home of the patriarchs of Aquileia. The building’s construction was begun in at the end of the 15th century with the patriarch Marco Barbo and was concluded in the 18th century with significant additions by the architect Domenico Rossi on commission of Dionisio Delfino.

The palace interior is an extraordinary tribute to the graceful use of colour and scenagraphic impact of Giambattista Tiepolo: from the grand staircase with the fresco of the Caduta degli angeli ribelli, to the Giudizio di Re Salomone in the Sala Rossa (Red Room) and the Galleria degli Ospiti (Guest Gallery). The Cappella Palatina (Chapel), the portraits of the high prelates on the Sala del Trono (Throne Room), the elegant stuccoes in the Sala Gialla (Yellow Room) and the precious grotesques by Giovanni da Udine in the Sala Azzurra (Blue Room) set the stage for a masterpiece of wood inlay: the Biblioteca Patriarcale (Library), containing a bibliographic heritage of inestimable value.

Rachele_nasconde_gli_idoli_Tiepolo

A unique covered spiral staircase leads from the library to the exhibition galleries of wood sculpture. The Udine Diocesan Museum contains a rich artistic heritage that is exhibited in spaces worthy of its great value, in a series of six galleries, divided as follows:
I Romantic to Gothic, II Early Renaissance, III High Renaissance, IV Mannerism, V Baroque, VI Roccoco.

From the “trembling elegance of the gothic” to the splendid 14th century Sant’Eufemia to the ideals of the Renaissance barely hinted at in the Pala d'Altare of Domenico da Tolmezzo (1488) and triumphant in the Redentore of Giovanni Martini (1520); visiting the museum it is possible to reconstruct the history of local regional wood sculpture from its apex (13th century) until its decline (18th century).