Page 84 - The Secret Museum

the troops, had left the convent, it fell into ruin and was left derelict for many years.

In 1958, the University of Bahia restored the convent and church and turned it into

the Museum of Sacred Art, exhibiting art belonging to the church, and 500 treasures
belonging to Brazilian and Portuguese museums, churches, convents and
brotherhoods in Brazil. During the restoration, the cross was found in the ground. The
restorers were overcome with pleasure at finding the buried treasure and carefully
cleaned and polished it until it shone like new. They put it on display in the museum.
However, within ten years, the area around the monastery went downhill and became
rough and dangerous, so the cross was taken out of the public galleries and hidden

away for safekeeping. There is still plenty to see in the museum itself: 1,500 pieces
of sacred art from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are displayed in the
rariefied atmosphere of the monks’ quarters, with a view of the glittering sea. You
can see the first fresco painted in Brazil: a lotus flower with a female figure
emerging from it.

The curator also took me into the former monks’ church so I could see how light
the space was, with pews of dark wood and a silver altar upon which the cross may
once have stood during a service, dazzling the monks as they prayed. I thought about

the monks who worshipped here carrying the bejewelled cross, opening it up during
Communion and lovingly polishing it after a service. They could never have
imagined where it would end up: inside a safe, locked out of sight, just in case.

As I left the museum and crossed the courtyard that leads out into the street, I
remembered why the cross was tucked away and decided to follow the taxi driver’s
advice. I flew up the hill to the main road and hailed a cab, made it safely into the car
and was thankful to have seen the beautiful cross safe in its charming museum.