When is the exhibition S.O.S. – Save our souls open?

The exhibition is on view from October 20, 2026 to April 4, 2027. The Diocesan Museum is open from Tuesday to Sunday from 9 AM to 5 PM. On Thursdays, there is extended opening hours during the exhibition until 8 PM.

What is the admission fee?

The admission fee for the exhibition is 8 Euro according to event information.

Which artworks are on display?

Displayed are salvaged works from the late Gothic and Renaissance, including multi-panel altars by Carlo Crivelli and Lorenzo Lotto.

Is there an audio guide?

Yes. A podcast tour guides through the exhibition in ten short conversations, examining the works from psychotherapeutic and psychological perspectives.

Is the Diocesan Museum accessible for people with disabilities?

The museum is accessible without stairs or via elevators. The Cathedral Hill Railway connects the city center with the Cathedral Hill.

Where is the Diocesan Museum Freising located?

The museum is located at Domberg 21 in 85354 Freising. It is about a 10 to 15-minute walk from the train station; there is a parking garage available on Cathedral Hill.

Saved Masterpieces: How Art from the Earthquake Ruins Brings New Hope

Name: S.O.S. – Save our souls
Start: 2026-10-27T09:00:00+01:00
End: 2027-04-04T17:00:00+02:00
Location: Diözesanmuseum Freising

Saved masterpieces tell of destruction, preservation, and hope

The special exhibition S.O.S. – Save our souls at the Diocesan Museum Freising is dedicated to precious art from the Italian Marche. The exhibition features works from the late Gothic and Renaissance periods that were salvaged, restored, and preserved for the public after the severe earthquakes of 2016.

Art from the ruins of the Italian Marche

The exhibition leads visitors into a landscape where churches, altars, and sacred imagery were severely damaged by the earthquakes from August to October 2016. Over 300 people lost their lives, and entire villages were devastated. Amid the rubble, an extensive rescue operation began for those artworks that are at once testimonies of religious devotion, local identity, and European cultural history.

At the center are multi-panel altars and other masterpieces from the late Gothic and Renaissance periods. Works by Carlo Crivelli and Lorenzo Lotto evoke the international art landscape of the Marche and make visible how closely tied north Alpine, Italian, and ecclesiastical artistic traditions are to one another.

Between Late Gothic and Renaissance

The contemplation of the works opens an impressive dialogue between luminous painting, precise drawing, and sacred symbolic imagery. Gold backgrounds, finely modeled faces, precious garments, and carefully composed altar spaces unfold an aesthetic in which religious experience and art historical innovation intertwine.

Carlo Crivelli represents a highly artificial, detailed visual language with expressive ornamentation and intense color effects. Lorenzo Lotto combines psychological presence with a dynamic, immediately perceptible composition. The exhibition makes these different artistic positions experienceable as part of a vibrant art direction.

The adventurous history of rescue

S.O.S. – Save our souls connects exhibition history, restoration, and cultural education. The presented works not only tell of saints, patrons, and biblical scenes, but also of recovery, conservation, and the responsibility towards cultural heritage. EU and state funds enabled the restoration of numerous artworks and laid the foundation for their renewed public presentation.

An audio guide expands the art historical perspective with an unusual approach. In ten short conversations, Bert te Wildt, chief physician of the psychosomatic clinic Kloster Dießen, examines the works from a psychotherapeutic point of view. Themes such as protection and bonding, suffering and guilt, beauty, meaning, and comfort link historical art with existential questions of the present.

Art experience at the Diocesan Museum Freising

The exhibition atmosphere of the Diocesan Museum creates space for a concentrated aesthetic experience. Light, color, material, and sacred forms enter into a silent dialogue. Among the salvaged altars, the significance of preservation becomes physically palpable: art appears as a vulnerable testimony and simultaneously as a resilient memory.

The Diocesan Museum on Freising Cathedral Hill combines art and cultural historical education with contemporary curation. The exhibition invites visitors to think beyond the material value of art and to reconsider its significance for community, identity, and spiritual orientation.

Conclusion: An exhibition about art, loss, and hope

S.O.S. – Save our souls welcomes visitors with rescued masterpieces, moving restoration stories, and an unusual engagement with the question of why art is preserved and what it can achieve. Those who want to experience late Gothic, Renaissance, sacred painting, and European cultural history in a compelling exhibition should discover this special art experience live at the Diocesan Museum Freising.