News

17 July 2019

A museum at the service of education and peace

A museum that is not "just a research laboratory in archaeology" but a place that can "reveal common roots and identities, a knowledge that contributes to peace".

11 July 2019

Opportunities and challenges for a volunteer from the Terra Sancta Museum: cataloguing at Gethsemane

Michele Colaianni tells us about the cataloging at Gethsemane

5 July 2019

At the school of mother-of-pearl artisans in Bethlehem

Instituted by the Franciscans during the 16th century, mother-of-pearl craftsmanship has been revived in Bethlehem. Concerned about preserving and valuing this Christian and Palestinian cultural ...

25 June 2019

The Keys of a Work: the Sanctuary Lamp of the Austrian Empire

On the occasion of the exhibition "Jewelry making: Past and Present" at the Islamic Art Museum in Jerusalem, we present one of the objects that the Custody of the Holy Land lent for the exhibition.

21 June 2019

The gifts of Louis XIV offered to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem

One of the most astonishing collections of French religious orfèverie, offered by Louis XIV to the Holy Land, has been preserved by the Franciscan Custody of Jerusalem since the 17th century. The ...

20 June 2019

A museum in a unique place: the Saint Saviour monastery

“The fact of being in the city and not outside the walls, as during the time of their first home on Mount Zion near the Cenacle, meant for the Franciscans a permanent and more regular contact with ...

13 June 2019

Spain and the Custody of the Holy Land

The Spanish presence in the Holy Land dates back to the 13th century, when Aragonese rulers arrived in Egypt to conclude agreements with the Mamluks to protect Christian sanctuaries and their ...

7 June 2019

When the relics of the Custody of the Holy Land manifest the philosophy of the Terra Sancta Museum

To venerate the relics of saints is to recognize the qualities of the latter, their testimony of faith in the name of Jesus, and their intense desire to imitate Him by imploring God through ...

29 May 2019

Story of the first inventory of art objects of Franciscan convents in Cyprus

Eleonora Musicco, a volunteer of ATS pro Terra Sancta in the Cultural Heritage Department of the Custody of the Holy Land and art historian, gives us the story of the first inventory of works of art ...

7 May 2019

The story of the reliquary used for the feast of the Invention of the Cross

This morning, the Holy Sepulcher celebrated the feast of the Invention of the Cross by St. Helena (from the Latin invenire: find). On this occasion, a reliquary in gold and precious stones of the ...

19 April 2019

Funeral of Christ: Franciscan Treasures of Good Friday

Today churches around the world celebrate and commemorate the Passion and death of Jesus Christ. Each year, on the very site where the historical events took place, in the Holy Sepulcher, a ceremony ...

12 April 2019

Go behind the scenes of the Terra Sancta Museum!

Passionate for the History of Art and the Holy Land, a team of volunteers of various nationalities worked for several months at the museum in order to inventory and to exhibit the exceptional ...