The gleaming ark, adorned with gems: the golden altar

An extraordinary artistic masterpiece and the only surviving example from the Carolingian era, the golden altar of Archbishop Angilbert II, was chiselled by the magister phaber Volvino to house a ‘treasure more precious than any metal’ - the bodies of Ambrose and the martyrs Protasius and Gervasius. Today it still retains its original liturgical function today, as the place of celebration of the Eucharistic sacrifice in honour of ‘Blessed Ambrose who rests in this temple'.