THE 15th century painting of St George and the Dragon, against a background of the Bay of Palma, the city walls and the Almudaina, the work of Pere Niçart, will be the star exhibit at the Diocesan Museum, next to the Cathedral, which will reopen on April 16 after six years of refurbishment.
The painting was recently restored in the workshop of José María Pardo.
Other exhibits will include altar pieces, paintings and statues, most of them from the medieval and baroque periods.
In addition to the St George by Niçart, there will be an altarpiece of St Paul from the mid-14th century, and one of Santa Clara from the mid-15th century.
Prior to the reforms to the Cathedral by Gaudi, the area of the main altar had a corridor, known as the corridor of candles which the Catalan architect dismantled to install electricity. Part of this, dating from the the 14th century and made of polychromed wood, will be on show at the Museum.
The pulpit of the church of Sant Jordi, dating from 1300, will also be one of the star exhibits. There will also be works by Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi, who was in charge of finishing the restoration and decoration of the Cathedral and the exterior of the Bishop's Palace.
The museum will open with an exhibition of 200 pieces, selected from the works most representative of the diocese.
It is also planned to organise temporary exhibitions in the museum.
The director of the museum, Miquel Garau, said yesterday that the museum will be an instructive journey through the history of the Majorcan church so that visitors to the museum can see the beauty of art in the Church.
Garau was accompanied by Bishop of Majorca Jesús Murgui, museum expert and art historian Lidia Homs, who is responsible for the exhibition, Bartomeu Bennassar who supervised the refurbishment and the vicar in charge of financial affairs.
Garau explained that the museum would be open from 10am to 2pm, and the admission charge is three euros.
There will be special facilities for school visits.
Homs explained that the museum's patrimony was immense, and while it was initially conceived for paintings, now it has been adapted as a museum.
She said it had been very difficult to select the works for permanent exhibition because of the huge number available.
The idea was to transmit the message of Christianity through religious art, she added.
The museum used to consist of four rooms, but now occupies the whole of the ground floor and the mezzanine floor of the Bishop's Palace. Bennassar explained that the refurbishment had affected not just the exhibition areas, but also the building's façade and courtyard, restoring some of the medieval elements.
Work involved strengthening the building's structure.
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