Altare et Urbs – Treasures and Donors of Turku Cathedral
ABOA VETUS
6.3.2026–24.10.2027
The exhibition Altare et Urbs – Treasures and Donors of Turku Cathedral, opening at the Aboa Vetus Ars Nova on 6 March 2026, brings together objects donated to the church and their donors. The objects were loaned to Aboa Vetus after Turku Cathedral closed for renovation.
The exhibition, set in the underground town environment of the Aboa Vetus museum, presents a selection of ecclesiastical objects from the Middle Ages onwards. Some of the items were donated to the cathedral by the city’s nobility and burghers who lived in the vicinity of the current museum and the cathedral in the 17th and the 18th centuries. The exhibition opens a door to a time when the church was an inseparable part of people’s everyday lives. The role of the townspeople in the history of Turku Cathedral is significant, and the Latin name of the exhibition refers to the altar and the town – the church and the surrounding community.
One of the donors was Turku’s wealthiest burgher, Barthold Festing, who owned a plot of land in the Convent Quarter in the 17th century, in the centre of what is now Aboa Vetus. A velvet collection bag donated by him and another burgher, Jochim Wolterstorph, is on display in the exhibition very close to Festing’s former residence. It was customary to engrave the donor’s name on donated items, making it possible to link the items to their donors even centuries later. Donations were made to support the church, to strengthen one’s position in the afterlife, and to make one’s name known. Donors also helped the church financially, for example after devastating city fires, and by purchasing expensive burial plots for their families inside the cathedral.
During the exhibition, Aboa Vetus houses national treasures, the most famous of which is perhaps the Ejby Chalice, which was looted from Turku Cathedral by the Danes in 1509 and returned as a gift 400 years later. The exhibition also features a medieval wooden sculpture of Saint Anne, which miraculously survived the Great Fire of Turku that caused major destruction to the cathedral.
Altare et Urbs – Treasures and Donors of the Turku Cathedral has been produced in collaboration with the Turku Cathedral Museum, the Turku and Kaarina Parish Union and the Turku Cathedral Parish, and will be on display until October 2027.
Inquiries:
Vilma Aaltonen
Communications Planner
vilma.aaltonen@avan.fi
040 352 9560
