Cagliari, Museum of the Shrine of Our Lady of Bonaria

The museum is located in the spaces adjacent to the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Bonaria, on the homonymous hill, in a building of Aragonese origin and headquarters of the Order of the Mercedarians, known above all for the commitment made over the centuries in favor of the liberation of slaves. The museum itinerary is divided into three rooms and a corridor that embraces the cloister below. The Sanctuary, on the other hand, owes its fame to the wooden simulacrum of the Madonna that landed on the beach in front of 1370, and to the subsequent establishment of a strong cult of the Virgin as the protector of sailors. The relics collected are, for the most part, the votive offerings of those who escaped shipwreck or slavery, but there is no shortage of offers from kings and people with illustrious names, such as the golden crowns offered, in February 1816, by Vittorio Emanuele I and Maria Teresa. Precious vestments, monstrances, chalices and reliquaries, gifts from princes and prelates, thicken in the windows. From the top of a wall, the large silver anchor offered by Queen Margaret of Savoy shines. The museum also has an interesting collection of archaeological evidence from the Colle di Bonaria. Frequented in the pre-Nuragic period and known to the Phoenicians, the hill was home to a late-Punic and Roman necropolis. The Christian tombs were located in the highest part, where the Sanctuary and Convent of the Mercedarians are now located, and along the slopes.

Why is it important to visit it
In the Sanctuary of the Virgin, patron saint of sailors, the most numerous ex-votes are precisely the seafarers and, first of all, the model vessels. As a collection of naval models, the Bonaria Museum is of truly exceptional importance due to the rarity of certain pieces.