In the Museum each room designated for museum display, although modest in size, has been dedicated to the memory of a bishop:

Entrance Hall: Msgr. Pietro Vincenzo Platamone
Room I: Msgr. Martino D’Acugna
Room II: Msgr. Girolamo Ventimiglia
Room III: Msgr. Giuseppe Coppola
Room IV: Msgr. Vincenzo M. De Francisco
Room V: Msgr. Bonaventura Attanasio
Room VI: Msgr. Francesco Arata

In the center of the entrance hall are two large oils on canvas both by an unknown author: one with The Virgin Mary and the Patron Saints of Lipari interceding with the Trinity (work of the 18th century), from the sacristy of the church of St. Joseph in Lipari; the other with Bishop St. Agathon receiving the announcement of the arrival of the body of the Apostle St. Bartholomew (work of the 17th-18th centuries), from Lipari Cathedral.

Through these two paintings it is intended to introduce visitors to the religious history of the Aeolian Islands, helping them to immerse themselves in the history – perhaps less well known – of the Islands, while also inviting them to visit places of naturalistic interest, the setting of such events.

Copies of Christian funerary epigraphs found in archaeological excavations are planned to be placed here, bearing witness to the presence of a Christian community already structured in the fifth century.

A three-flight stone staircase leads from the entrance hall to the second floor where there are three rooms, each dedicated to an important bishop of Lipari and to the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, respectively. Hanging on the walls are a series of paintings subdivided by historical period from some of the island’s churches that no longer exist or are awaiting restoration work and some portraits of Lipari bishops, and in the showcases liturgical objects and sacred vestments of particular value, grouped by type.

In HALL I, dedicated to Msgr. Martino D’Acugna, one is greeted by the large wooden statue of St. Catherine, placed on the left, crushing with her foot the head of the pagan father who had her tortured and killed. In addition, seven 16th-century paintings can be admired, the making of which is a few decades after the terrible sacking by the Turkish pirate Ariadeno Barbarossa in 1544. They testify – in addition to the various devotions present in the area and introduced from outside – to the trade and not a few relations that Lipari had with the ports of call of the Peninsula. Among them in particular are to be considered:

The panel painting of the Madonna and Child between Saints John the Baptist and Nicolò (1565), to be attributed to the Neapolitan painter Decio Tramontano, originally placed in the church of Maria SS. dell’Arco and Saints John the Baptist and Nicolò in Lipari, adjacent to the Church of the Madonna della Grazie, within the walls of the Castle of Lipari. The panel bears an interesting inscription informing about the commission, date and place of execution.

The centered panel with The Madonna and Child between Saints John the Baptist and James, in the upper lunette of which is the Trinity with angels, which most likely comes from the church of S. Giacomo Maggiore in Lipari, built by the Spaniards In contrada “valgo Vagnamare sopra rupe,” no longer existing today.

The work, offered as a votive gift by Giacomo Galluppi, documents through the inscription the lands reached by the Lipari sailors. The formal solutions would seem to be drawn from the Palermitan pictorial milieu near the modes of Vincenzo da Pavia (ca. 1557).

The panel painting of St. Catherine of Alexandria crowned by two angels, by the painter Giovanni Filippo de Floris, could be traced back to the small church of the same name near the present cemetery of Lipari (now ruined), reopened for worship during the second half of the 16th century, but already in existence before the “ruin.” The cult of the Alexandrian martyr, depicted here with angels holding crowns, with a rigid and archaic schematism of a popular matrix, must have been particularly widespread in Lipari as well, as attested among other things by the presence of a Confraternity of the same name whose act of incorporation is preserved. This Confraternity had obtained the possibility of keeping the statue of the Saint (now present in this same room, devoid of the Iconographic elements that distinguish it) in the Church of the Conception at the Castle of Lipari (later called St. Catherine’s).

The Dormitio Virginis, possibly attributable to Giovan Filippo Criscuolo (1495-1584), which comes from the Cathedral Church of Lipari in which the presence of an altar dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin is documented as early as the first pastoral visit after the “ruin.” Of interest is the presence of a figure in the lower foreground with outstretched hands that refers to the episode according to which a Jew attempting to overturn the catalet on which Our Lady was lying dried up his hands. He begs the Apostles to intercede and, once he is healed, is baptized. In fact, the painting is inspired by the apocryphal narratives that, at the time of the Virgin’s death, the Apostles were miraculously gathered in Jerusalem.

The Deposition, once on the altar of S. Marfa della Pietà in Lipari Cathedral, balanced and restrained is reminiscent of the panel of identical subject painted by Giovan Bernardo Lama for the church of San Giacomo degli Spagnoli in Naples.

Rooms II and III house works from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that attest to the great religious fervor that, fueled by the Council of Trent, led to a multiplication-in addition to churches-of the decorations and images subject to veneration. Considerable impetus in this direction was also given by the religious orders from which many of the bishops of Lipari were chosen.

These works for their quality and artistic connotations testify to the taste of the patrons, consisting of prelates and laymen of various origins and social backgrounds, who in that historical temperament were active participants in a significant artistic importation, linked at first to the Neapolitan environment and then to the Roman and Sicilian ones.

In ROOM II, dedicated to Msgr. Girolamo Ventimiglia, are seven other paintings made between the 17th and 18th centuries. Worthy of particular note are:

a Madonna with the Sleeping Child, St. Catherine and Musician Angels, by an unknown author between the 17th-18th centuries, oil on canvas, a copy by Carlo Maratta (Rome 1625-1713), present in the Bishop’s Palace of Lipari;

a Saint Barbara, by a discreet early 18th-century author attributable to the Messina school; oil on canvas, from the church of Madonna delle Grazie in Lipari;

an Apotheosis of St. Vincent Ferreri, attributed to the Flemish Guglielmo Borremans (Antwerp 1672-1744), oil on canvas of excellent quality, expressed in a lively language typical of northern Europe, unusual in Sicily, from the Chapel of the Rosary in Lipari Cathedral.

In ROOM III, dedicated to Msgr. Giuseppe Coppola, are two wooden sculptures of great interest: a Pietà and an Immaculate Virgin. And also six large canvases, three of medium size and a small oval with a Virgin Annunciate. The main canvases are:

a Madonna of Milk by an unknown author from the 18th century, an oil on canvas from the church of Madonna delle Grazie in Lipari

A work of good workmanship that presents in the center of the composition the Virgin on a throne of clouds holding the Child who collects in a glass cruet the milk flowing from the Mother’s breast;

a Presentation of the Virgin Mary in the Temple by an unknown author from the first half of the 18th century – oil on canvas from the church of Madonna delle Grazie in Lipari.

It depicts the Virgin with Joachim and Anna, received by the Priest. In the background a veiled woman (St. Anne of the Temple?) and figures holding heavy candelabra. Above, on a cloud, two cherubim and a rose branch;

a The Holy Family and St. Bartholomew by an unknown author, dated 1793, oil on canvas from the Church of Madonna delle Grazie in Lipari.

The central scene depicts the Virgin seated on a throne of clouds with the Blessing Child in her arms and St. Joseph at her side;

a Immacolata tra Santi e cherubini by an unknown author, 18th century (attributed to Fr. Fedele da S. Biagio, Capuchin, 1794) oil on canvas-from the Church of the Capuchins in Lipari.

The work described in detail in the early 19th century is attributed to Capuchin Father Fedele da S. Biagio with a date of 1794;

a S. Onofrio by Giovanni Barbera, 1743, oil on canvas-from the sacristy of the Church of the Addolorata in Lipari.

The canvas was transferred in 1811 from the Church of the Purification in Lipari, which no longer exists, by order of Bishop Todaro, to the Church of Addolorata also in Lipari.

a Madonna and Child with Franciscan Saints by an unknown author, 18th century (attributed to Sac. Giuseppe Russo of Barcellona di Sicilia), oil on canvas-from the Church of the Capuchins in Lipari.

A description of the work is provided by Cardinal Rodriguez, who saw it in the Capuchin church.

Descending the stairs, we again reach the ground floor where we find ROOMS IV, V and VI, also dedicated to a bishop and with a specific exhibition purpose.

HALL IV (silver room), dedicated to Msgr. Vincenzo Maria De Francisco, contains silver liturgical objects.

Most of the silver objects (monstrances, chalices, devotional crowns and reliquaries), thanks to the punches and some inscriptions, can be traced back to the catalog of artists whose activity is widely known in the Sicilian area.

In ROOM V, (hall of vestments), dedicated to Msgr. Bonaventura Attanasio, on the other hand, precious liturgical vestments belonging to bishops of particular importance to local history are on display. In the showcases are: the red chasuble of Msgr. Ventimiglia, who had the vaults of the Cathedral frescoed in the early 18th century; the green chasuble of Msgr. Tedeschi, famous for being one of the protagonists of the Liparitan Controversy; the gold net chasuble of Msgr. Angelo Paino, who was forced to leave the Aeolian Islands because of the controversy over the possession of pumice lands; the mitre of Msgr. Bernardino Re and some objects that belonged to Msgr. Bonaventura Attanasio, such as the unique sedan chair (outside the showcase, on the floor, next to the faldistorio cover – X-shaped bishop’s seat, without a fixed back), used for moving from the palace to the cathedral.

From ROOM V there is access to the CHAPEL.

This is the bishop’s private chapel, a room covered by a barrel ceiling. At the bottom of the asymmetrical plan is a 20th-century marble altar, which at the top, in the center, bears a trunk with a bone crucifix made between the 18th and 19th centuries. On the two shelves of the tabernacle are 12 candlesticks made of carved wood and gold leaf, while on the altar top is an open Canon Missae ad usum episcoporum ac praelatorum, published by the Vatican printing house in 1745, with the coat of arms of Msgr. Vincenzo M. De Francisco on the cover. Very interesting on the left wall is a series of fifteen small oils on canvas with the Mysteries of the Holy Rosary, from the choir of the Capuchin church at the Camposanto. The Sicilian majolica floor documents several phases of restoration of which in the date on the threshold of the chapel, is that referable to 1846.

In ROOM VI (room of sculptures and manuscripts), dedicated to Msgr. Francesco Arata, there are various ‘devotions’ present on the Island, which led to the building of countless churches and chapels scattered throughout the territory; as well as three large oil paintings and manuscript documents from the Historical Archives of the Diocese of Lipari.

In fact, in two large displays it is possible to admire some manuscripts from the Historical Archives, including the first Pastoral Visit that has come down to us and an interesting geometric plan of the lands of the Bishop’s Canteen that allows us to observe the conformation of the territory around the Palace in the early 1800s.

The four sculptures are: a St. Leonard and a St. Nicholas Bishop, in wood, attributable to the 18th century, and an Immaculate Conception and a Madonna of Trapani, in marble, also attributable to the same period.