MUSEUM OF VOTIVE OFFERINGS OF THE BASILICA DELLA MADONNA DELLA QUERCIA

HISTORY
The Virgin Mary, venerated under the title, “S. Maria della Quercia” is honored with extraordinary affection and devotion by votives preserved in a small museum adjacent to the architectural complex of the Basilica of Santa Maria della Quercia in Viterbo. The votive offerings originally hung on the walls in the church. Today, they are preserved in a room formerly known as the “Cloister of Women”, then as storage, as a deposit during restoration in the nineteenth century, and finally, in the years following World War II, as a cinema parish. During the seventies of the last century, thanks to the strong involvement of Msgr. Sante Bagnaia the museum for votive offerings was created and opened December 22, 1978.
This structure allowed preservation for all that was beautiful, precious, and lost within the monumental Basilica. 
To understand why the votives were made, we need to take a step back in time. During the summer of 1467, devotion to the Madonna of Quercia (Virgin of the Oak) spread in an extraordinary way, first in Viterbo, then through central Italy. From the outset, many votives hung from oak tree branches or were left on altar of boards built at the foot of the tree.
At the end of 1468, four Santesi, were commissioned by the City of Viterbo to receive offerings and to oversee the administration of the church. Driven by continued demand by many devotees, the Santesi decided to open a “wax shop” that manufactured and sold votive offerings, to satisfy the pilgrims’ desires. The shop was built next to the ” big church” which is now one of the most beautiful Renaissance churches of Tuscia and central Italy. Until the last years of the fifteenth century, the shop ran under the direction of the Ciffarelli family. By April 14, 1497, under a new agreement with the City of Viterbo, the Dominican Fathers, guardians of the sacred painting, took over management.
Since that moment, records of the convent of Santa Maria della Quercia showed revenue for the sale of ex-votos as well as payments for the purchase of materials required by artists working in the shop, in which the brothers divided in half with City of Viterbo.
At the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Dominican fathers of the congregation of St. Mark called members of the Florence Benintendi family or “Fallimagini”, to work in the shop. The Fallimagini were experienced builders with votive wax , often creating life-size statues with internal frames of wood and covered with waxed cloth “with beautiful folds … the heads were empty inside and portrayed live as if painted with oil and hair adorned with ornaments and other natural things that … accounted not men made of wax but very much alive … “. Although few records recount the votive tablets, we know from many books of miracles printed about every twenty years since 1571, that there had to be thousands attached to the walls of the church. During his trip to Italy ​between 1580 and 1581, the French traveler Michel De Montaigne visited the Basilica of the Madonna of Quercia and wrote: “… The Church is beautiful, full of a great religion and infinite votives .. .. “. The votives detached from the walls of the church, along with other objects from the monastery, survived the passage of events to the present day. The preservation in the rooms of the museum and the anti-museum of the Basilica of Quercia are something to be admired.

DESCRIPTION
Entering the Basilica, which once was the second chapel of the left nave, beyond the lava stone arch, opens the Anti-Museo, through which you can reach the Basilica of the Madonna della Quercia Museum.

ANTI-MUSEUM
In this space are today placed a series of artworks, among which stands out a particular votive offering, placed here in 1984 by Don Sante Bagnaia, represented on an oak wrought iron work of the master Antonio Cepparotti (1983). There are other interesting artworks, such as an oil on canvas of the Madonna della Quercia e santi, the work of the sixteenth century, previously located on the altar of the sacristy, the realization of which, as suggested by the Dominicans at the shrine, it seems is connected with the chapel of novices, depicted at the feet of the Vergine della Quercia. A similar image is found in the church of the Collegio Papio in Ascona (Switzerland), attributed to Fra ‘Paolino da Pistoia around mid-1500s and then transferred from Quercia to Ascona. In the same space we find the Angelo Custode, oil on canvas created in 1709 for the convent’s chapel, built over the sacristy, attributed to Peter Nucci: “… and closer to the dome there is the chapel with a guardian angel, putties and more … ” (Vol. 115 c. 224 v). The tarquinian painter Balduini noted many similarities between this painting and another that is located in the church of S. Giuseppe in Tarquinia by Pietro Nucci, 1734. In the nineteenth century restorations, when the chapel was restored and Gavardini’s S. Maria Maddalena, the painting was placed in the anti-sacristy. The Anti-Museum also houses Il Battesimo di Gesù Cristo, this painting is not complete, probably produced as part of the school of Sebastiano del Piombo, previously placed in the church of Almadiani and then held in trust by the City of Viterbo in the Church of the Quercia, from which it had in exchange for architectural fragments placed in the garden of the Basilica, remains and proves the destructive nineteenth century restorations. In such environment are preserved, also, architectural fragments recovered from the Basilica’s garden, some restored by Don Sante, others used for different purposes like two plaques, once placed on the floor of the church. Some of these are now placed in the beautiful grove adjacent to the convent, used as seats and tables. Near the entrance to the former convent, are placed, finally, a beautiful picture of the Madonna con un arme, perhaps the Poggi family owner of the chapel of St. Domenico, today destroyed.

MUSEUM OF VOTIVE OFFERINGS OF THE BASILICA DELLA MADONNA DELLA QUERCIA
Traduzione di Marissa Navarro dell’Università di Boise di e Vivian Cottrell dell’Università di Reno, Nevada.

ESSENTIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY

Signorelli Mario, Santuario della Madonna della Quercia, Viterbo: storia, Arte e Culto nei secoli, Viterbo 1967.
Gianfranco Ciprin, Francesco Ciprini; La Madonna della Quercia. Una meravigliosa storia di fede, vol. I, II, Viterbo 2005.