Diocesan Museum in Pelplin

About

The Diocesan Museum in Pelplin (Polish: Muzeum Diecezjalne w Pelplinie) holds one of the finest collections of medieval art in Poland. It is located in the town of Pelplin in Tczew County (Pomeranian Voivodeship) and is managed by the bishopric of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pelplin. It bears the name of Bishop Stanisław Wojciech Okoniewski (1870–1944), the founder of the museum (pl), who died in Lisbon during World War II. Founded in the Second Polish Republic in 1928 during the interwar period, the collections have been housed in a modern-style building complex since 1988. Among the museum's most precious objects is Poland's only copy of the Gutenberg Bible.

The largest part of the collections are Gothic sculptures from the churches of the former Diocese of Kulm renamed in 1925 as the Bishopric of Pelplin, and also from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Toruń. Late Gothic paintings of "Crucifixion" from Lignowy (gilded with gold leaf), "Flagellation" (1380), and "Descent from the Cross" (1495) from the Cathedral Basilica of St. John the Baptist and John the Evangelist in Toruń, are supplemented with original art by Hermann Hahn (1570–1628) and Andreas Stech...