Museo de Arte Religioso

One of the highlights of colonial Comayagua [1] was the Museo de Arte Religioso, a small museum which housed an eclectic and occasionally fascinating collection of religious art from Comayagua [2]’s five churches, including paintings, chalices, statues, vestments, old documents, and an impressive wooden confessional.

The building housing the pieces, the old Bishop’s Palace dating from 1735, was devastated by a fire in April 2009, and the museum temporarily closed. Over 80 percent of the collection was saved, however, and the museum will hopefully soon reopen here or elsewhere in town.

Our favorite pieces are the small silver hand-held shields, used for the exchanging of peace during mass during the time of the plague, as a way to avoid actually shaking hands and thereby transmitting or catching any contagious diseases (a precaution that seemed timely once more as H1N1 flu broke out).