Visitation Museum in Moulins, France
In October, 2011 the unique Museum of the Order of the Visitation, located in Moulins, France, celebrates its 20th anniversary! And its Founder and Curator, Monsieur Gerard Picaud, will be honored by being enrolled as an Officer in the national French Order of Arts and Letters.
The press release from France tells the story of this Museum:
Moulins, capital of Bourbonnais, was quickly an important city for the Order (of the Visitation). In 1616 the third foundation of the Order was founded which, thanks to the duchess of Montmorency, had a considerable influence. Today still, a community of nuns of the Visitation of Holy Mary reside there. It is thus not a chance if Moulins saw debut, in 1991, the beginnings of an human and extraordinary spiritual adventure : “Glance on the Visitation”. The Society of Emulation of Bourbonnais welcomed then, with the municipal and departmental financings, a permanent exposition devoted to the Institute.
This museum is unique in Europe, since there exists no equivalent either for the Order of the Visitation nor for any other great religious order. Its development was considerable. The associated structure received the approval of all and the congratulations of the President of the Pontifical Commission for the Cultural Goods of the Church.
A Scientific committee councils the Board. It is composed of people recognized for their competence in the mediums of art, history and Salesian spirituality.
Today, the Board works in partnership with 89 monasteries of France, of Europe (Germany, Austria, England, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Switzerland), from America (Canada, the United States, Peru, Colombia, Mexico, Brazil), of Africa (Congo and Rwanda) and of Lebanon. It manages in Moulins a Museum located at: 4, place de l’Ancien Palais and a site for Thematic Exhibitions: (Hotel Demoret – 83 rue d’Allier).
The collections comprise 8500 objects.
Each day, the museum gives life to the history of the Order, safeguards and makes known its religious heritage, both of worship and culture. It reveals to the visitors the daily life of the nuns.
Exceptional collections make the Museum of the Visitation a unique work. But the interest of the collections lies not only in their richness, their state of conservation, their new character, but more especially in the totality of information concerning these objects. The first four books published since 2007 prove it.
Following a continuous work of research,, the Museum of the Visitation profits from seldom known information for similar objects preserved in private or public collections: exact dating, author, donator, silent partner, geographical origin , place of conservation during the centuries, anecdotes… These entirely computerized references constitute a database baptized “Philothée” making it possible to establish the link between the history of the objects and the life of the monasteries throughout the centuries.
For further reading:
http://www4.desales.edu/~salesian/resources/newsletters/english/News25.pdf
