Overview

On 5 July 2005, the Museum of the Sanctuary of St Nicholas of Tolentino reopened its doors with a new layout. Consisting of art, ceramics, votive offerings and cribs, it offers visitors a wide variety of works of art, including the famous wooden group depicting the Nativity attributed to the Master of the Magi from Fabriano and the monumental altarpiece by Marchisiano di Giorgio, formerly in the basilica's high altar, owned by the National Gallery of Ancient Art in Rome, on deposit and newly restored. Other outstanding paintings are 'The Mystical Marriage of St Catherine of Alexandria with St Nicholas of Tolentino and St Anthony of Padua' by Simone de Magistris and 'The Apparition of Our Lady of Loreto to St Nicholas of Tolentino', attributed to Antonio Francesco Peruzzini.
Another pleasant surprise awaits visitors: a little-known painting of St Nicholas of Tolentino, attributed by Maria Giannatiempo Lopez to Simone de Magistris. There is also a large collection of silver ex-votos, including St Nicholas of Tolentino by Joseph III of Spain, an 18th-century Roman silversmith, and 'St Nicholas Appears to Marc Antonio Colonna' by an unknown 17th-century silversmith, bearing an inscription with the name of the miraculously saved 'Colonna Dux Palleani et Tallecotii'.
The ceramics section, the result of a donation to the municipality of Tolentino by Cardinal Tacci in 1933, offers specimens from Castel Durante, majolica from Faenza, ceramics from Savona, pharmacopoeia vases and products of 17th and 18th century Abruzzo art. Finally, there is no lack of precious and rare objects intended for furnishing the altars and necessary for liturgical celebrations, such as reliquaries, pyxes, panels and busts, such as the one by the goldsmith and silversmith Stefano Lepre, bearing a portrait of a beardless St Nicholas, made in the 18th century.