The Diocesan Museum of Salerno is housed in the Archbishop's Palace alongside the cathedral and holds one of the most remarkable collections of medieval ivory carving in Europe. The centrepiece is a set of fifty-four ivory panels, carved in the eleventh century, that once decorated the ambo — the raised pulpit — of the cathedral. Each panel depicts a scene from the Old or New Testament in extraordinary detail, with figures barely larger than a thumb yet full of movement and expression. When the ambo was dismantled in the seventeenth century, the panels were dispersed; the museum has reunited the largest surviving group.
Beyond the ivory panels, the museum displays vestments, reliquaries, liturgical silver, and painted panels from the cathedral treasury spanning more than a thousand years. There is also a section dedicated to the medieval history of the Archdiocese of Salerno and its connections to the Schola Medica. The building itself is worth a visit: the courtyard and rooms of the Archbishop's Palace retain much of their medieval character, with frescoed ceilings and stone doorways carved with Norman and Lombard motifs. Not a large museum, but one where almost everything on display is genuinely exceptional.