The birth of the diocesan museum

After 1986, as the palace was no longer the usual seat of the bishop’s residence, the idea of allocating a diocesan museum to it began to be considered, which would collect historical and artistic goods from churches that were closed or no longer used and kept in the sacristies.

Spending energetically for the completion of the work and the setting up of the museum itinerary was Msgr. Giovanni Accolla, who in August 2020 inaugurated the first four rooms housing the picture gallery, with paintings from the 1500s to the 1800s on panel and canvas.

In the summer of 2022 – after some necessary consolidation work in the foundation – three more rooms were opened to the public, for the display of silverware and vestments, as well as the small chapel, previously reserved for the private use of the residential bishop.

Along with the work on the museum rooms, a substantial heritage reconnaissance operation was launched, which has led, to date, to the restoration of seven paintings.

Part of the palace has also been earmarked for the archives of the Diocese of Lipari, which, perhaps more than any other place, has uninterruptedly guarded since the mid-1500s, after the terrible sack of Barbarossa, the historical memory of the entire Archipelago. Added to it are the precious volumes of the library of the Lipari Seminary and the Capuchin Convent.