The current Museum of Pilgrimages and Santiago houses works of a very varied nature: documentary and historical vestiges of all kinds related to the universal phenomenon of pilgrimage, the Camino de Santiago and the city of Compostela as a goal.

 

The Museum was created in 1951. At that time, the idea that lay behind its creation was to obtain funds through private and public donations. In the sixties and seventies numerous funds were made available from different sources, particularly from other museums. In 1995 the management of the Museum passed to the Xunta de Galicia, which since then has developed a policy of purchasing works and funds related to the Camino de Santiago and the city of Compostela. In this way, the collections and the museum itself grew in size, particularly in the latter years, when the exhibition halls were transferred to the current building in the Plaza de Platerías.

The Museum now has important collections of sculpture, painting, jet, engraving, and decorative arts, as well as an important fund of archaeological items, ethnographic artifacts and documentary and bibliographic collections.