Museo Catedralicio de Ourense

Overview

The Museo Catedralicio de Ourense is the cathedral’s treasury museum, laid out in parts of the unfinished Gothic cloister known as the Claustra Nova. It is small, and it is not sold as a separate attraction: the ticket that lets you into the museum also covers the rest of the cathedral, and the entrance is the same one.

Two pieces do most of the work. One is the Tesoro de San Rosendo, a group of objects that came to the cathedral from the monastery of Celanova. The other is the Misal Auriense, a missal dated 1494 and generally described as the first book printed in Galicia.

Be realistic about the scale. This is a diocesan collection in a provincial cathedral, closer to a well-stocked sacristy than to a city museum, and the rooms are dim and the labelling is in Spanish and Galician. It earns its place because you are already inside the building for the Ourense cathedral visit, and because a handful of the objects are genuinely early.

Collection

Church metalwork is the backbone of the display: chalices, trays and other liturgical vessels, alongside liturgical vestments, religious sculpture and painting. The single most reproduced object is a processional cross attributed to Enrique de Arfe.

The Tesoro de San Rosendo is the reason specialists come. Galician Wikipedia lists it as an ivory crozier, a portable altar, a set of chess pieces, a chalice and a mitre. The chess pieces are the ones people photograph: eight of them, carved from rock crystal.

A series of Limoges enamel plaques belonged to a twelfth-century casket that has not survived intact. They are small, blue and easy to walk past. So is the arqueta de Santa Eufemia, the other reliquary chest the Galician museum network singles out.

Carved wood fills the later rooms. Spanish Wikipedia names two Immaculate Conceptions by Mateo de Prado, of 1656 and 1658, a Conception by Francisco de Moure, the Virgin of O, the Virgin of Reza and the Virgin of Seixalbo, and a sixteenth-century Ecce Homo. Ourense’s tourism office also claims the oldest Christian gravestone in Galicia is on display here, though it does not date it.

Visiting

Entry is through Patín Juan de Austria and there is one ticket for the whole building. The general adult rate is €10 for visitors aged 18 to 64, and it includes an audioguide in Spanish, Galician, English, Portuguese, French, German and Italian.

Opening is Monday to Wednesday from 10:00 to 15:00 and 16:00 to 19:00, Thursday to Saturday from 10:00 to 19:00, and Sunday from 13:30 to 19:00, with the last admission 45 minutes before each closing.

The audioguided route runs in a fixed order and the museum comes near the start. After the welcome it goes to the Claustro Nuevo, the epistle nave, the Pórtico do Paraíso, the Virgen del Rosario altarpiece, the chapel of the Virgen de las Nieves, the Gothic tomb of the Infanta, the chapel of San Juan, the north transept arm, the Capela do Santo Cristo, three more chapels, the high altar, the south doorway, the lantern tower and the bell tower.

Give the whole building an hour and a half if you want to listen to the audioguide properly, of which the museum rooms will take perhaps a third. The Pórtico do Paraíso is the other thing worth slowing down for: three arches, the central one taller, with polychrome sculpture, built with clear Compostelan influence but close to a century after the Pórtico da Gloria in Santiago.

Tips

• Buy online before you arrive. The cathedral sells tickets through shop.articketing.com, and the shop link is on the cathedral’s own site.

• Pilgrims pay €7 instead of €10, over-65s and young visitors aged 13 to 18 and students up to 25 pay €9, groups of more than 20 pay €6 each, and school groups pay €3.50.

• The cathedral closes completely on 24, 25 and 31 December and on 1 January.

• If you want the roof, book it separately. The “Ourense desde el Cielo” visit to the cathedral roofs costs €14 general, €8 for ages 13 to 17 and €4 for children up to 12, runs Friday and Saturday at 11:00, lasts about an hour and needs a minimum of five people, booked by phone or email.

• The roof visit is closed to anyone with reduced mobility, heart conditions, vertigo or claustrophobia, and to pregnant visitors.

• The tombs tour is the cheaper add-on at €12 general, €8 young and €4 for children, Thursday to Saturday at 11:00, 12:00 and 13:00.

• Labels are in Spanish and Galician. The audioguide has English, so use it rather than the wall text.

• Once a year, on 1 November at 21:00, the cathedral runs a night visit called “Luces de San Martiño” at €25, lasting an hour and a quarter and including the climb to the organ tribune.