Multimedia Guide – New Experience for Visitors

The Church Heritage Museum presents a new multimedia guide and welcomes people to virtually discover some of Lithuania’s most notable movable and immovable heritage. The guide includes over 100 themes and exhibits. The interactive platform offers three tours, each featuring audio clips with accompanying texts and videos, revealing the circumstances behind the origins and creation of each item in the museum’s main display and highlighting their unique properties.

The guide will introduce visitors and online users to the Bernardine church and convent of St Archangel Michael. The construction and decoration of this spectacular Renaissance-era ensemble was sponsored by Leonas Sapiega, one of the most prominent 16-17^th century Lithuanian noblemen. The buildings were once inhabited by the closed convent of Bernardine sisters. The church served not only as a house of prayer but also as the Sapiega family mausoleum. Since 2009, it also houses a museum presenting the treasures of Vilnius Cathedral and other places of worship within the Vilnius Archdiocese. The multimedia guide allows one to more closely explore various mysterious discoveries, such as monstrances and reliquaries – masterpieces of goldsmithing and powerful testaments to the tradition of piety.

The ‘City of Heaven’ tour focuses on an integral part of the history of Vilnius – its monasteries and their heritage. It presents the history and art valuables of 17 monastic communities of Vilnius: from the very first fraternities arriving in the 14^th century – the Franciscans and Dominicans – to the sisters of Charity who settled in the capital in mid-18 century. You will hear about the communities’ founders, saints and sponsors as well as the common monks who helped make Vilnius beautiful. The heritage of some of the communities – the Basilians, Sisters of Visitation, Canons Regular of the Petinance of the Blessed Martyrs and others – has not survived so well and is represented only by individual objects, meanwhile the history of the Benedictines, Bernardines and the Jesuits is attested to by dozens of exhibits, several of which are included in the guide.

The multimedia guide brings forth the uniqueness of Vilnius Cathedral, its crypts and belfry. It also showcases the history and evolution of this temple built in one of the oldest inhabited areas of Vilnius, and introduces prominent people who have contributed to the Lithuanian state and the church, and are buried in the underground crypts. From now on, every user of the guide will be able to discover the masonry of the 13^th century belfry, its sixteen bells, the largest one weighing 2,595 kilograms, the city’s oldest clock and some interesting details about the sound of the bells used to call people to Mass.

We would like to invite you to listen to the stories about the masterpieces of goldsmithing, textile, fine art and sculpture revealing the matured-over-centuries artistic taste and generosity of the noblemen, clergymen, rulers, benefactors and sponsors of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, as well as the zeitgeist of that era.

The multimedia guide is available here: gidas.bpmuziejus.lt

Project sponsors: Vilnius Archdiocese, Lithuanian Council for Culture