Lecce: Museum of Sacred Art and the Jewish District

This morning in Lecce was a morning of contrasts for me. I had already booked a walking tour of the Jewish district for later in the morning. I needed something to do before that.

I chose the Museum of Sacred Art. Just to be clear, it’s not sacred Jewish art. It’s art that’s as Christian as Christian can get. I chose it because it was included in the ticket to the four Baroque churches I visited yesterday. So, what the heck? Why waste it?

Museum of Sacred Art

The former seminary now housing, among other uses, the Museum of Sacred Art
The former seminary now housing, among other uses, the Museum of Sacred Art

The Museum of Sacred Art is housed in a former seminary building fronting the Piazza del Duomo.

I know seminaries aren’t monasteries. Nevertheless, I’d imagined that priests, who, I believe the story goes, are supposed to live non-materialistic lives in the service of God and their flock, would be taught in simple, scanty structures.

I’m either wrong about that or this is an exception. The building is a veritable palace. The English language version of the website that sells the Baroque Tour in Lecce, of which the museum is a part, refers to the building as, and I quote, the “Antico Seminario Palace.”

The Museum of Sacred Art is up one floor. Getting there requires walking by, and through if I wished, a beautiful cloistered courtyard. I wished.

Cloistered courtyard inside the building housing the Museum of Sacred Art
Cloistered courtyard inside the building housing the Museum of Sacred Art

There’s also an open, not particularly exciting chapel off the cloister.

The museum spans two floors

The lower floor consists of two rooms. The first room contains mainly paintings, but also a few statues. There are paintings of saints in and out of broader contexts.

There are also a lot of paintings of the guy Christians allege is God’s son. Different paintings depict him at various ages, from an infant to middle age. As an infant, he’s usually with his mom and other people. And he’s not usually alone when older either. Not an introvert, that one.

There’s a rumour that I tend to believe, salacious though it may be, that God fathered His son out of wedlock. I leave it to you to judge that.

A statue in the Museum of Sacred Art
A statue in the Museum of Sacred Art

The second room has more paintings plus statues of wood and papier-mâché by Lecce artisans from the 16th through 20th centuries.

The upstairs portion of the Museum of Sacred Art is above only one of the rooms, and not even all of it.

It’s as if someone said, “Wow, that’s a high ceiling, isn’t it? It’d be a shame if we let all of that beautiful space go to waste.” So they put up some vertical steel I-beams to support some horizontal girders. Then they put metal grate flooring over that, creating a second-floor space that covers maybe two-thirds of the room below it.

Upstairs, there is a collection of items in cases, including monstrances, crucifixes, chalices, candleholders, reliquaries, religious texts, and religious garments.

A painting in the Museum of Sacred Art
A painting in the Museum of Sacred Art

Jewish District

The Jewish Museum of Lecce
The Jewish Museum of Lecce

After finishing with the Christian Museum of Religious Art, it was time to learn a little bit about my tribe’s history in Lecce. As I alluded to in the introduction, yesterday, I booked a one-tour of the Jewish district of Lecce for today. The majority of the tour was in the Museo Ebraico, the Jewish Museum.

I learned a lot from the guide and a short video in the museum.

For example, “the Jewish district” is a historical, not contemporary label. There is evidence that there was a Jewish presence in Lecce as far back as the Roman Empire. And there was a thriving Jewish community here in the 14th and 15th centuries. The then Jewish district was a district of choice, centred around the synagogue, not a ghetto.

There was already some antisemitism back then because, let’s face it, there’s always some antisemitism. Then, in 1495 France conquered the Kingdom of Naples. They fanned the flames of antisemitism vigorously. The Jews of Lecce were given three choices. One, they could flee. Or, two, they could convert to Christianity. Or, three, they could die. Some choice.

Remember yesterday I told you that Lecce’s Basilica of Santa Croce was built on land from which the Jews of Lecce were expelled? Well, there you have it.

Not all that many years later, the Spanish conquered the Kingdom of Naples and the Jews had to leave all of southern Italy. By 1541, the Jews were forced to leave all of the Kingdom of Naples.

Today, there is no Jewish community in Lecce. In fact, there are no Jews known to be living in Lecce at all.

But there is the Jewish Museum. It was founded by two non-Jewish families in Lecce.

What's believed to have been the mikvah in the old synagogue of Lecce.

There are still a lot of questions about the Jewish community back in the 14th and 15th centuries, so the museum admits that some of its information is tentative. They’re still doing research.

The museum is located in the basement of a building that is believed to be where the old synagogue of Lecce stood. Down some stairs is what they believe was the synagogue’s mikvah. It’s a rectangular hole with a little bit of water at the bottom. It’s believed that there used to be stairs into the mikvah that are no longer there.

Rivers run underground through Lecce. The museum is hoping to be able to do some excavation and raise the water level to what it was during the time of the synagogue’s mikvah.

After the Jews were expelled from Lecce, the synagogue was largely destroyed and it was replaced with a church. That building was later bought and sold several times and is currently a bed and breakfast. There were no guests in the B&B when I visited the Jewish Museum and the owners let the museum bring visitors into a couple of the rooms to see some of the still-exposed original interior walls of the church.

The Jewish Museum is hoping to raise enough money to buy the whole building, expose more of the church walls, and expand the Jewish Museum in it.

In the synagogue, one of the stone blocks of the building had an inscription in Hebrew that translates to “This is none other but the house of God” in English. That stone block was not found in what was believed to be the remains of the synagogue. But it was found in the basement of the Palazzo Adorno a short distance away.

The guide took us to the Palazzo Adorno, which is now a government building. She told us that sometimes the people working in the Palazzo would let her have the key to the basement to take people down. She went in and came back with the key. So, down we went.

The stone is on the top of an opening shaped like a doorway, rectangular, with the width being the narrow part of the rectangle. But the top is much too low for it to be a doorway for anyone but Munchkins or Hobbits.

The inscribed synagogue building stone that's now facing downward in an opening of the Palazzo Adorna
The inscribed synagogue building stone that’s now facing downward in an opening of the Palazzo Adorna

The inscription is at the top facing down. They placed a mirror on the floor so it could be seen. I reached down, stuck in my phone, pointed the camera up, and snapped a picture. It’s definitely Hebrew. The museum is also hoping to be able to expand the museum into the basement.

Nobody knows why the block with the inscription was moved from the remains of the synagogue to the Palazzo Adorno. Considering its position, my guess, and it’s only my guess, is that it was recycled building material that just happened to end up there.

The whole experience was very interesting.

Lunch

And then it was time for lunch. I had a zucchini leaf stuffed with ricotta cheese. I’d had it once before on this trip, but never before that in my life. It was scrumptious both times. I followed that with spaghetti with olive oil, garlic, red peppers and anchovies. Also delicious. Of course, it was all accompanied by a glass of wine and ended with an espresso.

It was another lingering lunch that took me close to the time for my special afternoon activity. Wait for it.


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