Castel Sant’Elia’s sacred vestments became well known in the last years of XIX century, when they were exposed in a sacral art exhibition in Orvieto in 1896. The vestments first appeared in the municipal archive in 1643, when the Council asked for an account of all the sacral items in the church. It is certain that from 1740 they were stored in the parish church of Sant’Antonio Abate.
In the first years of XX century, Cardinal Doebbing discovered the vestments kept in a chest under the main altar; they were then restored and preserved in appropriate glass cabinets.
In 1923 a member of local Superintendence led the first inspection for the status of the materials preserved, and stated the lack of display areas as well as their inadequacy. The Civil and the Church authorities then agreed to move the vestments in a more appropriate space, the Civic Museum, where the municipality provided modern and bigger display cases.
In 1937 the vestments were moved again, this time at the priest’s house, since the Superintendence considered unsafe the previous location. During the Second World War the sacred items were preserved in the Vatican deposits, and kept there until 1945. Since then the vestments are kept in the locals put at disposal by the Michaelite Fathers, who keep the Santa Maria ad Rupes shrine.
