The exhibition entitled “Life behind Monastic Walls” presents the rich history of the Stična Abbey, the oldest operating monastery in Slovenia. Throughout its 900 years of history, the abbey has left a significant religious, economic and cultural mark on present-day Slovenia.
Visitors can see monastic workshops with various tools (for cobblers, tailors and cheese-makers), objects used for baking the host and various kitchen utensils. There is also a collection of bee-keeping and farming tools.
The next room is dedicated to the best-known Slovene monks of the twentieth century. Father Simon Ašič (1906–1992) is known to Slovenes mostly as an herbalist whose work and books about natural ways of healing with herbs made him one of the most prominent experts in this area in Slovenia. The display features several of his personal items and a portable pharmacy. In the same room the visitors can see some of the works of the prolific painter, Father Gabrijel Humek (1907–1993).
The twentieth-century art history collection features paintings and sculptures by major Slovene artists: Matej Sternen, Ivana Kobilica, Ivan Vavpotič, Ivan Grohar, Maksim Gaspari, Maksim Sedej, Lojze Spacal, Anton Gojmir Kos, Albert Sirk, Matej Metlikovič, France Kralj and France Gorše.
The Leopold Kozlevčar cultural history collection features Biedermeier furniture, clocks from the early nineteenth century, porcelain and glass items and works of art. Most of these objects were gathered by the private collector Leopold Kozlevčar (1904–1988).
The religious items collection features objects of a pious nature that were accessible to the average believer in different centuries. The display includes statues and images of saints, paintings on glass, wooden crucifixes, votive images, aspersoria, nativity scenes, rosaries and other trinkets from pilgrimages dating mostly from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The room of saints features depictions of certain saints, both male and female. The main exhibits are the paintings of St Vitus and St Florian by the celebrated Slovene Baroque painter Fortunat Bergant. Visitors to this room can also become acquainted with Sts Cecilia, Clare, Margaret, Sebastian and others.
The collection of ecclesiastic vestments encompasses embroidered chasubles, dalmatics and other vestments from the seventeenth to twentieth century. Visitors can also admire the insignia of some of the Stična abbots.
The display at the Laurence Keep features museum exhibits connected with the spiritual and cultural mission of the Stična monastery. It includes portraits of some Stična abbots, a reconstruction of the Stična scriptorium, a facsimile of a Stična manuscript from the fifteenth century and many printed books from the modern era.
Liturgical vessels (chalices, ciboria, monstrances) are kept in the treasury, along with procession crosses, reliquaries and a unique collection of wax figurines; the most significant of these are two eighteenth-century dolls of infant Jesus from Prague.
