The museum called Museo dell’Opera del Duomo in Orvieto (MODO) is not really a single museum but a system of museums organised on different levels that are all close to or directly connected with the Duomo. The exhibition and the entire itinerary have the Duomo (cathedral) dedicated to Santa Maria Assunta as its focal point and fulcrum, since it is the undisputed masterpiece of the city of Orvieto. The various rooms contain not only documents and correspondence linked to the various phases of design and construction of the cathedral but also furnishings and decorative elements, once kept inside but then removed in the 19th century, following major restoration work which aimed to restore the Cathedral to its original sobriety.
The exhibition starts from the Duomo itself and moves into the rooms of the Palazzi Papali where there are frescoes from the 14th and 15th century, sculptures and paintings by artists such as Ippolito Scalza, Cesare Nebbia and Arnolfo di Cambio, and finally large panels of the sinopias (preparatory drawings) of frescoes in the Capella del Corporale. The route continues to the Libreria Albèri, built in 1499 by the archdeacon Antonio Albèri who decided to donate his collection of manuscripts and incunabula, totalling more than 300 pieces, to the Duomo. Palazzo Soliano, which is also a papal building, houses the modern collection of bronzes created by the Sicilian sculptor Emilio Greco, to whom we also owe the three monumental portals of the Duomo itself. The itinerary ends in the Church of S. Agostino, where the wonderful sculptural groups referred to as ‘dell’Annunciazione’ are exhibited, created by Francesco Mochi in the 17th century, along with statues of Apostles and Saints, dated from the 16th to the 18th centuries.