Diocesan Museum of Padua

Hall of San Gregorio Barbarigo

This room the first floor, chiefly for use by scholars due to the presence of the chapter library and the diocesan archives, is a room named for St Gregory Barbarigo, bishop of Padua (1664 - 1697), which contains several accounts of the diocese's library and of the cathedral's scriptorium. Of special interest are documents pertaining to the renaissance library of bishops Iaocopo Zeno and Pietro Barozzi (bishop from 1487 to 1507), and which include 14th-century illuminated manuscripts, 15th-century incunabula, and pre-16th-century books. The actual diocesan museum is found on the second floor of the building.

Salon of the bishops and Capella di Santa Maria degli Angeli

These rooms and the palace chapel display

Portraits of Padua's bishops frescoed in the 16th-century on the walls by Bartolomeo Montagnana but refurbished and completed in the subsequent centuries. Represented here are the first one hundred bishops of Padua, beginning with San Prosdocimo and arriving at Pietro Barozzi, who commissioned the work.

Fresco with a portrait Francesco Petrarca, removed from the poet's house in Padua

Madonna with Child- mid-15th century mosaic detached from the demolished (1810) church of St Job (San Giobbe).

Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries this room slowly deteriorated, and was returned to its original splendor with its latest restoration in 2006.

On the north-east side of the salon is the entrance to the chapel of Santa Maria degli Angeli, commissioned by bishop Pietro Barozzi and built in 1495 by architect Lorenzo da Bologna. The frescos by Prospero da Piazzola and Jacopo da Montagnana follow an iconographic program centered on the Apostles' Creed. On the main altar is found:

Triptych by Jacopo da Montagnana depicting the Annunciation, St. Michael the archangel and St. Rafael the archangel.

Collection of liturgical items

This section contains a rich assortment or liturgical items, of particular interest are:

two dalmatics with maniple and stole (late 15th century)

a corredo embroidered with gold thread and a papal coat of arms, donated to the cathedral by Pope Clement XIII, bishop of Padua (1743–1758).