Museum of votive offerings and folk devotion

Address

Museo degli ex voto e della devozione popolare, Via Savona, Dogliani, CN, Italia — Go to map ↝

Business Hours

Always open

Contacts

Website Email Tel: +39 0173 742573

Closing Day

Holidays

There is a particularly interesting museum in Dogliani because it houses a type of folk artwork whose tradition has now been lost, and which few people know about: the Ex Voto.

In fact, these works are often found collected in churches and shrines, where they have accumulated over the centuries, but it is quite rare to find them gathered in a museum entirely dedicated to them.

What are Ex-votes?

Ex Voto are drawings on wooden tablets, and we can define them as gifts made to a deity-usually the Madonna-for a grace received.

The drawings depict the very event for which thanks are given to the intercession of the deity, and were sometimes drawn by the protagonists themselves, or commissioned from local painters.

1

1. Dogliani

Considered the capital of the south-western Langhe, it still maintains the urban physiognomy that history and man have designed since its origins

The Interior

Four centuries of devotion in one place

The museum came into being thanks to the work done over the years by the “Friends of the Museum” association, which, starting with two temporary exhibitions, has since 201o then taken care of the permanent exhibit.

It was realized that we had an important material on our hands both in terms of quantity-about 300 ex votos were surveyed-and in terms of quality.

The oldest works date back to the 17th century, and come from the shrine of San Quirico, while the most recent are from the mid-20th century.

A glimpse of Langa life

The interest that these works arouse is not necessarily due to their religious character as much as their ability to illustrate a cross-section of the society of past centuries.

A society seen and told for once through the eyes and features of the people and not those of the nobility or the wealthier bourgeoisie.

Indeed, by reviewing these paintings we can find what were at the time the most common accidents in an agrarian society, where people often risked their lives working in the countryside.

Ex votos for falls from plants, a child run over by a wagon, or a fall from a bridge are common. Also numerous are those related to cures from diseases that were once much more deadly than today.

Finally, there is no shortage of those related to war, especially World War I, during which surviving a bombing raid or a frontal assault on enemy trenches was considered a divine grace.

N° of rooms

1

N° of floors

1

Park

—

Visit Duration

—

Ticket Price

Free Entrance

Audioguides

Not available

Guided Visit

Optional

Approximately 300 ex votos have been counted

1

2

1. Approximately 300 ex votos have been counted

They date from the 1600s to the mid-1900s.

2. An insight into peasant life

The events for which thanks were given were often related to the harvest or livestock.

Info and contacts

The museum is located on Savona Street, in a room behind the apse of the parish church of Saints Quirico and Paul.

Especially interesting and valuable are the dozens of older Iignee tablets from the Sanctuary of San Quirico,

they are unique among the collections of votive offerings in the shrines of the province, not all of which are on display, but which find their place there in rotation or in thematic exhibitions.