A 16th Century Italo-Byzantine Cross 9781463233303

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A 16th Century Italo-Byzantine Cross

Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies

32 Series Editors George Anton Kiraz István Perczel Lorenzo Perrone Samuel Rubenson

Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies brings to the scholarly world the underrepresented field of Christianity as it developed in the Eastern hemisphere. This series consists of monographs, collections of essays, texts and translations of the documents of Eastern Christianity, and studies of topics relevant to the unique world of historic Orthodoxy and early Christianity.

A 16th Century Italo-Byzantine Cross

Edited by

Sheila Campbell

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34 2012

Gorgias Press LLC, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com Copyright © 2012 by Gorgias Press LLC

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of Gorgias Press LLC. 2012

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9

ISBN 978-1-4632-0163-0

ISSN 1539-1507

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A 16th century Italo-Byzantine cross / edited by Sheila Campbell and Winston Black ; contribution by Sheila Campbell. p. cm. -- (Gorgias Eastern Christian studies, 1539-1507) Includes bibliographical references. 1. Laskaris, Georgios, 16th cent. Malcove Cross. 2. Wood-carving, Italo-Byzantine--Italy--Venice Region. 3. Wood-carving--Italy--Venice Region--History--16th century. 4. Christian art and symbolism--Italy--Venice Region--Modern period, 1500- I. Campbell, Sheila D., 1938- II. Black, Winston E., 1977- III. Title: Sixteenth century Italo-Byzantine cross. NK9798.L37A68 2012 736'.4--dc23 2012016397 Printed in the United States of America

TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface and Acknowledgments............................................................ vii List of Plates............................................................................................. ix Introduction .............................................................................................. 1 Sheila Campbell Byzantium and Venice in the Sixteenth Century ................................ 7 Sheila Campbell The “leather” box for the Malcove Cross.......................................... 11 Sheila Campbell Winston E. Black Description of the Malcove Cross....................................................... 15 Sheila Campbell Discussion of Iconography................................................................... 37 Sheila Campbell The Carver Georgios Laskaris ............................................................. 45 Sheila Campbell ‘Ut poesis sculptura’: Poetic and Dramatic Sources for the Malcove Cross?................................................................. 51 Nerida Newbigin The Malcove Cross and the Performance of Faith .......................... 65 Domenico Pietropaolo Conclusions............................................................................................. 75 Sheila Campbell Bibliography ............................................................................................ 79 Plates ........................................................................................................ 85

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PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The object under discussion in this study is an elaborately carved cross in a large collection of art donated by the late Dr. Lillian Malcove to the University of Toronto in 1981. As curator of that collection for twenty years, my attention was often drawn to this object, but it was clear to me that a collaborative effort was needed to properly publish it. The repetition of architectural backgrounds in the various scenes on the base seemed to me rather unusual, and made me think of a stage set, but mediaeval drama is not my specialty. I therefore suggested to colleagues who specialize in mediaeval drama and who work on the PLS (Poculi Ludique Societas) productions at this university, that this might represent scenes from the performance of a late medieval play based largely on the events of the Passion. Alexandra Johnston and Sally Beth MacLean, both of whom work with the REED (Records of Early English Drama) project at the University of Toronto and are active in the PLS productions, discussed this possibility with me on many occasions. I am particularly grateful to Sandy Johnston for valuable exchanges of ideas over many years and only regret that the continued investigation of this work has taken us beyond her area of specialization. But it has been brought to my attention that many scholars have studied the notion of connections between visual images and dramatic performances. The vast majority seem to think that there is no real connection. However, to my eye, the settings for the scenes do have a contrived element to them which goes beyond the oddities of Byzantine tradition. In the text which follows, I have provided the discussion of the Italo-Byzantine content, the possible identity of the carver, and the basic art historical and iconographical approach. Winston Black has examined the frequency and date of printing of the parchment wrapper of the box for the cross, and thereby added to the discussion of date and provenance. Nerida Newbigin has offered a possible use for the cross as a devotional aid, possibly intended for a woman, and Domenico Pietropaolo has examined the images as theatre which reflects the litvii

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urgy, and how an individual might incorporate these images into their own understanding of the gospel. I am grateful to these colleagues who have responded to my requests for assistance, and for their specialized input and for the helpful comments of an anonymous reader. I also extend my thanks to Dawn Cain, my successor as Malcove curator, for her enthusiastic response to my requests for access to files and negatives. Of course, we must also acknowledge the generosity of Dr. Lillian Malcove for her donation of this cross, and indeed the whole Malcove collection, to the University of Toronto. She wanted her collection to be used for teaching, and the complexities of this one object exemplify in a small way, the teaching possibilities of the whole collection. Sheila Campbell October 2011 Toronto

LIST OF PLATES

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30.

General view of case General view of case, infra red photo Detail of case, infra red photo Detail of case, infra red photo General view of cross and base Detail of Cross, Front Detail of Cross, Back Base Side A Base Side B Top of cross upright, Grotesque mask Detail of cross upright, grotesque mask Top of cross bar, St. Paul Annunciation ANNUNTIATIO Young Mary in the temple (?) Nativity NATIVITAS Nativity detail Baptism of Christ Presentation in the temple PURGATIO Entry Into Jerusalem PALMARUM CELEBRATIO Flight Into Egypt FUGAGENITRICS Christ Teaching CHRISTUS DOCET Christ Teaching the Marys XPS DOCET MARIAS Resurrection of Lazarus RESURECTIO LAZARI Transfiguration TRANSFORMATIO Raising of the Cross Crucifixion CRUCIFICATIO Crucifixion detail Descent from the Cross Lamentation / Entombment SEPULCRUM Resurrection/Anastasis RESURECTIO ix

x 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45 46 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68.

A 16TH CENTURY ITALO-BYZANTINE CROSS Entombment DEPOSITIO DNI IN SEPULCRU Meeting with Thomas PALPATIO Ascension ASCENSIO DNI Pentecost Arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane Arrest in the Garden, detail Trial scene Trial scene Trial scene detail Trial scene Trial scene detail Betrayal Betrayal detail Trial scene Trial scene detail Trial scene Trial scene detail Christ Carrying His Cross Christ Carrying His Cross detail Trial Scene Trial Scene detail Trial Scene Trial Scene detail Christ before Pilate, the Flagellation and the Rending of Christ’s Robe Christ before Pilate, the Flagellation and the Rending of Christ’s Robe detail Crucifixion (?) Crucifixion (?) detail Soldiers at tomb Soldiers at tomb detail Women at tomb with angel or Christ Women at tomb with angel or Christ , detail Christ Washing Disciples’ Feet Christ Washing Disciples’ Feet, detail Garden of Gethsemane Garden of Gethsemane, detail Women at tomb with angel Women at tomb with angel Women with Disciples

LIST OF PLATES 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82.

Women with Disciples, detail Last Supper Last Supper, detail Christ with Apostles at Emmaus (?) Christ with Apostles at Emmaus, detail Two angels and three women at tomb Two angels and three women at tomb, detail Three women and disciples at tomb Three women and disciples at tomb, detail Communion of Apostles (?) Communion of Apostles, detail Christ appearing at Emmaus Christ appearing at Emmaus, detail Berlin Cross: Staatliche Museen Zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, inv. 793. Reprinted with permission. 83. Berlin Cross

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INTRODUCTION SHEILA CAMPBELL The object of our attention is a carved wooden cross (Plate5) made of cypress wood. It is 31cm. high in total, the top cross segment 15 x 9.5 x 2.3cm, and the base 15 x 8.2 x 6.2cm. Each of the carved panels is approximately the size of a 35mm slide transparency. The cross is part of the University of Toronto Malcove Collection,1 and is number 306 in the published catalogue. It is housed in a box made from a recycled mis-printed page. The box is catalogue number 307 and will be discussed separately in Chapter 3. This item belongs to a category of carved wooden crosses which is distinguished by its base. There are roughly three types of carved wooden crosses associated with the Orthodox Church. There are those which are known as “sanctification crosses,” used to sanctify a home or business premises, outside the church. In this ceremony the priest dips a sprig of basil in water and uses it to sprinkle the rooms while holding the cross in the other hand to bless the building. The cross is usually placed on a stand beside the bowl of water, but may also itself be dipped into the water. Because of this association with water, there is usually a scene of the Baptism of Christ on one side and the Crucifixion on the other and the cross must be of a size to be held in one hand. The second group of crosses, known as benedictional crosses, are cruciform in shape, and may have various elaborations added in the form of wooden foliate ornament, or metal and enamel casings. Some of them have handles which extend from the lower surface of the cross. These are used by the priest to bless the congregation in the church. The Malcove Collection, edited by Sheila Campbell, University of Toronto Press, 1985. 1

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They too are held by one hand.2 The category of cross to which our example belongs is quite different. This type is generally made of two pieces of wood, a top and a base joined by dowelling. The result is a cross which is not conveniently held by one hand, and since it has a base, it is clearly meant to be placed on a flat surface. This flat surface is not likely to be an altar because of the relatively small size of the object. More likely, these types of crosses were meant for private devotions where the user would have a close view of the individual scenes. It is with this idea in mind that we shall examine the Malcove cross. The cross didn’t just happen. It didn’t spring forth from the carver’s mind without intent. While we do know now that there are many similar crosses,3 we also know that there had to be an audience, or market for them. We shall return to the question of multiple examples later. For the present we shall focus on this one example and the identification of the probable carver. The cross can be attributed with near certainty to a known artist, Georgios Laskaris, discussed below. How far can we go in reconstructing the context for this devotional object? The historical and social setting can be described, and something can be said about artistic sources and influences. The fact that the box, purpose made for this cross, has a link to Venice (q.v.) persuades us to look at the same city as the source of the cross. Yes, they could have been made in different locations. But unless we have good reason to do so, why separate the two and insist on distant and distinct origins? What remains elusive is the purpose, and even more difficult the person(s), who commissioned the Malcove cross and others like it, in the first place. Our initial work on the Malcove cross was done with the assumption that it was a unique piece. After completing our work, we discovered that there are many more similar carved crosses, some of them possibly even by the same hand. Some of these bear the name of the carver, Georgios Laskaris, about whom almost nothing is known and lead us to explore the market for devotional objects produced by refugees from Ottoman rule and sold to an insatiable market in Venice. The question then arises of how to integrate our examination of just I am grateful to Andreas Andreopoulos for clarification and confirmation of my understanding of these crosses. 3 Victor H.Elbern, “Ein Kreuz des Georgios Laskaris in den Berliner Museen,” Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen, 2003, Band 45, pp. 65–76. 2

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one example into the study of the larger oeuvre. We have chosen to continue our detailed study of the Malcove cross, but always keeping in mind that any statement made about that one example must be tested against the existence of a larger body of work by the same artist. An attempt to reconstruct the history of an individual object is always a dangerous process, filled with presumption and almost guaranteed inaccuracies. But not to attempt this reconstruction is to ignore the profound individuality of an object of highly superior quality. Such is the case here. We can identify the cross and most of its imagery, its date and its relationship to similar objects from a slightly different context. We can try to understand the purpose for its existence, and the motivation for creating it. In the discussions which follow, we shall try to provide at least a context for this superbly carved wooden cross, and while our opinions do not always agree, they nevertheless do not necessarily exclude one another. However, one point must first be clarified. Historians of Mediaeval/ early Renaissance theatre, in my experience, seem very unwilling to accept visual images as examples of theatrical performances, no matter how much those images may appear to be staged. But as an art historian, I would argue that artists are always dependent on their own memory bank of visual images for material for their work. Excluding the twentieth and twenty-first century ideas of abstract and conceptual art, which did not exist in the sixteenth century, artists producing realistic images cannot invent things which they have never seen. All art is derivative, based on previous examples, or copied from life experiences of the artist. So even though some may argue that a particular scene is not an image from a play, nevertheless it does reflect something which the artist has actually seen. These are not images of everyday life, chosen randomly for the purpose of this object. Nor does he or she necessarily set out to represent a scene from a play, but consciously or unconsciously does call upon experience for the composition. Why else did the artist who carved this cross show New Testament events taking place in a northern Italian setting? This is not an example of major creative invention for the carver; this type of cross is a traditional eastern orthodox form, albeit in this case, with some unusual additions. The artist did not choose to use the more customary Near Eastern setting, with palm trees and early first century architecture of Jerusalem, as displayed in countless works before this. Instead he chose to call upon images from his experience, possibly a theatrical performance, using the architectural forms with which he was familiar

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The different academic disciplines represented in this volume take a variety of approaches to this work and the questions it provokes. As an art historian, I note the combination of eastern and western content and style and ask the following questions: Why did the carver work in this particular format? Was the work done to commission? And if so, was the emphasis then on the theatrical aspects, or was it a reference to the notion of religious “theme parks” which also existed at that time.4 Those parks and these images could function as mnemonic devices for the viewer to perform a mental pilgrimage as he/she visualized the various events of the New Testament and especially the Passion. N. Newbigin has alluded to this in her analysis of the purpose of this object and indeed even suggests that the owner/commissioner may have been a woman. D. Pietropaolo has followed the leads which the cross provides for liturgical performances, and the religious theatre which that provides. These interpretations are not incompatible; there is no exclusively right or wrong answer. One thing which is abundantly clear is that only one person could use the cross at a time because of its small size. Was it commissioned by an individual, or could it be made for a group of individuals who might use it in turn as an aid to meditation and prayer? The latter possibility arises because of the cost of creating this object. Was the commissioner simply a pious individual who wanted this devotional aid or was it for use by a group of individuals sequentially? It is also curious that if the owner of the cross was using it to perform a mental pilgrimage, then why do so through the medium of what was shown as a contemporary play, in a contemporary setting, rather than through the standard New Testament imagery set in a Near Eastern landscape and architecture. It does say something about the viewer, that he/she was making an effort to “experience” the events of the Passion in the context of their own world. And putting those events into their own world does make them more real or relevant, comparable in a secular example, to the performance of Shakespearian plays in modern dress, as became popular in the twentieth century. There is a clear difference of emphasis between the cruciform section on the top, and the base. On the top, the narrative extends from the Annunciation to the Anastasis, while on the bottom the topic is exclusively the Trial and Passion of Christ. An obvious omission on the 4

See note 1, Part 9, Conclusions.

INTRODUCTION

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top is any reference to the miracles performed by Christ with the exception of the Raising of Lazarus. One might object that there isn’t room for them. But then there has been a conscious choice of what to include, so why are the miracles not included when there is some duplication, such as two scenes of Christ teaching, two scenes for the entombment, and three scenes for the Crucifixion? This seems to be a decision to emphasize the predestined recognition of divinity, followed by Death and Resurrection, that is the Annunciation through to the Transfiguration, Crucifixion and Anastasis on the top, with the details of the final stages, namely the Last Supper, the Garden of Gethsemane, the trial before the Great Council, Herod and Pilate, on the base. How was this object to be used? If we restrict our inquiry simply to the cruciform part on the top half, then there is little problem. The images tell the New Testament narrative which is familiar to all Christians and would be used as a devotional aid. But the detailed representations on the base imply something more than that, namely a specialized interest which focuses devotion and meditation on the Passion. Why is this so? At this point our opinions begin to diverge, as we emphasize either literal or symbolic reactions on the part of the person who commissioned and used this devotional aid. Does the cross tell us something about religious practice, or about theatrical performance, or both? I believe it does tell us about theatrical performance, by showing the use of a single stage set with multiple variations. Does the theatrical element tell us something about the owner of the cross, i.e. a special interest, or is the theatrical component simply generic, to provide an appropriate state of mind for meditation and prayer, an aid to the mental reconstruction of an event, to a semblance of “being there?” The multiple and interdisciplinary approaches to an understanding of this piece also lead us to a quest for an understanding of the creative process, a process which is almost impossible to isolate and view, especially for the artist him/herself who produces a work of art. And while it does seem possible now that we can identify the carver,5 we can add only small amounts of information about him, namely that he probably worked in northern Italy and that he was trained in the Byzantine rite. We still cannot confirm whether he was a monk, and why he chose to

5

See Part 6.

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create so many carved crosses which are so similar. Further possibilities are offered in the appropriate chapter on this carver. One thing, however, is clear. The figured panels are so small that only one person at a time could use the cross for meditation and prayer. It was kept in a purpose-built box, probably so that it could be safely transported from one place to another, but while there are signs of handling on the box, the cross itself shows remarkably little sign of wear. It is our intention, in this volume, to make the cross known to a larger audience, and to invite wider interpretation.

BYZANTIUM AND VENICE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY SHEILA CAMPBELL After the fall of Constantinople in 1453 to the Ottoman Turks, there was a great exodus of Greek artists, merchants, nobles and monks. Many of them went to Venice, since the islands which had been under the control of Venice were now also claimed by the Ottomans. A substantial Greek community was established there so that by 1468, according to one contemporary writer, Venice had become almost “another Byzantium.”1 This is still approximately seventy-five years before the time of the work of the carver Georgios Laskaris, (q.v.) but let us examine some of the events which preceded him and which would have influenced his life and work. It is most likely that Laskaris trained as a wood carver in one of the monasteries of Mount Athos.2 At this stage we are not able to determine whether he was a monk or a layman, but Mount Athos was the major source for such training. How did the Ottoman invasion affect Mount Athos?3 Initially the lands outside Mount Athos which were owned by the monasteries were taken over by the Turks. These lands, both on and adjacent to the Chalkidiki peninsula, had provided income for the maintenance and repairs of monastic buildings as well as the D.J. Geanakoplos, Byzantium: Church, Society and Civilization Seen through Contemporary Eyes., Chicago 1984, p. 62. 2 The alternative source of training in woodcarving seems to have been Crete, but by the early 16th century, the Venetian domination of the island had substantially limited this activity. 3 An excellent summary of events is provided by Ch. G Patrinellis, in the exhibition catalogue, Treasures of Mount Athos, Thessaloniki 1971, pp. 10–15. 1

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subsistence of the monks themselves, so now alternatives had to be found. Not only was it necessary to retrieve their agricultural lands for normal ongoing everyday expenses, they were also now expected to pay heavy taxes and fines levied by the Turkish authorities. The late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were a particularly difficult time. Where did the money come from and how was this resolved? The monks managed to retrieve at least the use of their lands, if not the full ownership, partly through negotiation, and partly through loans and donations from diaspora Greeks living elsewhere in the Mediterranean and Europe. And while promises were made by one Turkish administration, this situation was regularly violated by successive Turkish rulers, which resulted in a constant state of uncertainty and heavy debt for the monasteries. Other sources of income had to be found and one of these sources was money earned in a variety of ways by monks who traveled extensively, away from the monasteries to the lands where the diaspora Greeks had settled. Away from Mount Athos they could acquire funds for the monasteries by alms begging, by working on the monastic lands, or by providing some other sort of service, especially those with artistic training such as icon and fresco painting and wood carving. Artistic production became a particularly important source of funds after 1514 when the first Greek Orthodox church was permitted to be built in Venice.4 One example of this sort of fund raising is the production of paper icons. This is also an example of the success of bulk marketing of an inexpensive product. These paper icons were images which were drawn by an artist in one of the monasteries, to be reproduced on paper. Possibly the printing plate might be engraved there as well. Alternatively the actual plate could be made where the printing was to be done. But the Turks discouraged the printing of books in Greek script and the use of a printing press for religious images. Instead, the engraved copper plates were sent to a Greek printing house in such places as Vienna, Munich, or Lyon, to be reproduced in large quantities. When ready, the prints were sent back to the monks who then traveled throughout the areas where Orthodox believers lived, and those people gave donations in return for the printed pages. Many thousands of “Venice and the Byzantine Sphere”, Maria Georgopoulou, Byzantium, Faith and Power (1261–1557), ed. Helen C. Evans, N.Y. 2004, p. 494. 4

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these images were printed, and the practice continued well into the early twentieth century.5 This work provided one of the sources of income. The evolution of style in the paper icons also reflects the two way influence of western and eastern artistic expression. However, before the monks could engage in this kind of commercial activity, the monastic communities had to adjust their rules to allow monks to be paid for work and services. Up until the fifteenth century, most of the monasteries operated under a coenobitic system. That is, the monks lived together, ate together, and were not allowed to hold private property. In earlier centuries the idiorrythmic system had prevailed. That meant that the monks lived independently, could own personal property and receive remuneration for work done. This practise was discouraged around the twelfth and thirteenth centuries as it deviated from the ideals of the coenobitic lifestyle. But after the Ottoman invasions, it was imminently practical to return to an idiorrythmic system in order to extend the opportunities by which the monasteries could be maintained. Therefore the monastic rules were relaxed to allow the monks to acquire personal property, earn money to buy their own food and clothing, and thereby also acquire funds to send back to their own monastery. By the end of the sixteenth century the Patriarch was trying to reverse this process, but it did not substantially change back to the coenobitic system until the nineteenth century 6 and the Greek War of Independence. The situation in Turkish held domains was substantially different from that in Venice. There Orthodox and western Christian elements did overlap. In Ottoman territories the synthesis of Islamic and Christian artistic, cultural and religious elements did not take place. Indeed some cultural elements such as education, were suppressed. This is particularly evident after the advent of printing, when the Turks tried to discourage the printing of books in Greek and Cyrillic script.7 But by contrast, in those lands under western dominance, especially Venetian held territories, there had been earlier contact, so the stage was set for cross-fertilization. The presence of so many followers of the Orthodox Dory Papastratos, Greek Orthodox Religious Engravings 1665–1899, Athens 1990. 2 vols. 6 Patrinilles, op. cit, p. 11. 7 See Dory Papastratos,, loc. cit “Introduction,” passim. 5

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faith in a western Christian city simply accelerated a process of mutual influence which had been going on since well before the beginning of the Crusades at the start of the twelfth century. Venice, as a rising mercantile and political power, had intentionally tried to copy the glory of Constantinople, most obviously in the structure and mosaic decoration of the great church of San Marco. Many of the works of art plundered from Constantinople in 1204 during the fourth Crusade, had been taken to Venice as trophies and installed in churches there. So for over three hundred years the people of Venice had been exposed first hand to the artistic styles, albeit out of date styles, of the Byzantine world. But the influence was not all in one direction. At least from the time of Iconoclasm (726 — 843 AD) artists had traveled away from the Byzantine cities in search of work, and had exposure to western styles. In Cyprus there was a great mingling of nationalities, especially during the Crusades, and artistic products from that island are distinctive in their blending of eastern and western styles and in Crete a similar interaction took place. In early to mid sixteenth century Venice, the time of Georgios Laskaris, Latins and Greeks, Catholic and Orthodox, had been living together for several generations and the artistic styles which emerged demonstrated the natural modus vivendi that had evolved. This is not to say that Greek artists were not able to conform to true orthodoxy, i.e. to produce purely orthodox imagery in their work if called upon to do so. But they did have the flexibility to attract western customers as well. And that, I believe, is what we are witnessing in the combined eastern and western elements of the Malcove cross. Why else did the carver use Latin for the inscriptions instead of Greek, if not for a western market ?

THE “LEATHER” BOX FOR THE MALCOVE CROSS SHEILA CAMPBELL PLATES 1–4 While the main point of our discussion is the actual cross, it is important to first examine the box which was made to house this object. The identification of the material of the box firmly establishes a context for the box, i.e. northern Italy, in a mixed Latin and Greek milieu,and helps in establishing a date, at least a terminus post quem, all of which is important to the ensuing description and discussions. The cruciform box which houses the cross is made of wood covered with parchment and varnish, and lined with red silk. One might think of this parchment as a kind of papier maché, made to look like leather. But there is an unusual feature. On close examination one can see that there are letters printed on the parchment. Infra red photographs make the reading quite easy and the work which is revealed provides a date for the manuscript used to cover the box, a location for the printing of that manuscript, and by extension contacts for the cross as well.

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THE PARCHMENT WRAPPER WINSTON E. BLACK In 1985 Nancy McElwee and David Townsend described the cruciform box in the Malcove Collection catalogue.1 The following discussion of the sheet covering the box is an extension of their initial remarks, made in light of the recent discoveries about the artist who most likely made the cross. The protective case made for the Malcove Cross appears, at first glance, to be covered with stamped leather. It is actually a piece of parchment, apparently recycled from a printer’s shop because the page was printed incorrectly. The sheet was varnished, covering the text, which is now visible only under infrared light. The text can be identified and may give some clues as to the date and provenance of the cross and its box. The sheet comes from a late medieval legal text, the Lectura in Decretales (“Lectures on the Decretals [of Gregory IX]”) written around 1440 by the law professor Nicolò de’ Tudeschi, better known by his ecclesiastical title Panormitanus (i.e.Bishop of Palermo). The Lectura proved very popular and was printed numerous times before 1500 in several cities in Italy (Venice and Rome), Germany (Basel and Nürnberg) and southern France (Lyons). It is difficult, however, to date or localize a single sheet of printed parchment that has been wrapped around a cruciform, wooden box. The material and typeface both indicate an earlier date, most likely before 1500 or the early 16th century. After the advent of printing, paper quickly eclipsed parchment as the surface of choice. While most early printing was done on paper, a small run of each edition was usually done on parchment, possibly for up-market buyers.2 By 1500, the The box is item no. 307 in The Malcove Collection. A Catalogue of the Objects in the Lillian Malcove Collection of the University of Toronto, ed. Sheila D. Campbell (Toronto: 1985), 218. 2 Lilian Armstrong. “The impact of printing on miniaturists in Venice after 1469,” in Printing the Written Word: The Social History of Books, circa 1450–1520, 1

THE “LEATHER” BOX FOR THE MALCOVE CROSS

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price of paper was drastically lower than that of parchment, so even a single sheet of misprinted parchment was worth keeping for another purpose.3 The font is a Gothic typeface of the round, or rotunda, variety, with clean curves and little or no feet, a type most popular in 15thcentury Italy. After 1500 Round Gothic quickly fell out of use in Italian printing houses, being almost entirely replaced by Roman and Italic fonts. Most printings of the Lectura come from Venice, a major centre of legal printing, and the most important centre of book production in Europe by the end of the 15th century. Eight different 15th-century printings of the Lectura (from 1471 to 1497) can be traced to Venice, making it one of the most important early printed texts of canon (church) law.4 For comparison, Venetian printers produced 231 editions of legal texts in the 15th century, while Florence produced only four in the same period, and Bologna (though long an important legal centre) only 28.5 Thus without any other evidence to go by, the sheet was most likely printed in Venice. Yet after a half century of frequent printing, the Lectura seems to have fallen out of popularity in Venice. Several ed. Sandra Hindman (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991), 179. For example, Gutenberg’s original 42-line Bible of 1454 was printed in a run of about 180 copies, approximately 40 on vellum and 140 on paper (Stephan Füssel. Gutenberg and the Impact of Printing, tr. Douglas Martin [Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003], 20). 3 R.J. Lyall, “Materials: The paper revolution”, in Book Production and Publishing in Britain 1375–1475, ed. Jeremy Griffiths and Derek Pearsall [Cambridge, 1989], 11. 4 Leonardas Vytautas Gerulaitis. Printing and Publishing in Fifteenth-Century Venice (Chicago-London, 1976), 106. Ludwig Hain recorded 28 different copies of the Lectura from which eight or nine different Venetian editions can be distinguished, Repertorium Bibliographicum (Stuttgart, 1826–1838; reprinted Milan, 1948), Vol. II, Part 2, #12308–12335. See also Catalogue of Books Printed in the XVth Century now in the British Museum. Part V: Venice (London, 1924), and “Panormitanus” in Alan Coates, Kristian Jensen, Cristina Dondi, Bettina Wagner and Helen Dixon, with Carolinne White and Elizaebth Mathew. A Catalogue of Books Printed in the Fifteenth Century now in the Bodleian Library (Oxford, 2005). 5 Gerulaitis. loc.cit., 130–131, 146.

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editions of the Lectura were printed in Lyons between 1500 and 1550, but I have been unable to find any other Venetian editions of the Lectura between 1497 and 1571, after which time it was printed regularly until the production of a massive edition in 1617–18. None of the later Venetian editions are printed in Round Gothic. Some conclusions can be drawn about the sheet. The use of Round Gothic on parchment points to a book printed before the early 16th century, probably even before 1500. The typeface and the subject matter of the book also suggest a provenance in northern Italy, most likely Venice. It is unlikely that the sheet traveled from its city of origin, so the box was most likely also made in Venice, possibly by a bookbinder also trained in box-making. It also seems likely that the box was made specifically for the cross. Without any other evidence to go by, the sheet was most likely printed in Venice. Yet if we assume that the sheet is also nearly contemporaneous, that would date the cross to ca.1475–1505 (the period of major Venetian printings of the Lectura, give or take 5 years). This is at odds with the identification of the artist as Giorgios Laskaris, which would place the cross in the early to mid–16th century. If that is true, the simplest resolution, though totally unverifiable, is that the sheet, rejected from a late 15th-century Venetian printing of the Lectura, was ignored or misplaced for several decades until it was used by a professional binder in the construction of a special box. Another possibility is that the sheet had another use for the intervening decades, possibly as a loose wrapper for a paper manuscript, a common application for single sheets of parchment in the early modern period. Little more can be said without firm identification of the artist or further research into the uses of parchment in the 16th century, within and without the book trade.

DESCRIPTION OF THE MALCOVE CROSS SHEILA CAMPBELL ELABORATELY CARVED WOODEN CROSS ON A BASE (GENERAL VIEWS, PLATES 5–9) (Plates 5–7) This intricately carved artefact is made from four pieces of wood, probably cypress. It was produced in northern Italy circa 1550 AD. This date has been discussed further in the context of the box which was custom made for it. Although there is definite Byzantine influence here, q.v., the cross was certainly carved in a western context as demonstrated by the Latin inscriptions. The cross is one piece, the base a second, and the uppermost register of the base is a third, inset with a close-fitting join into the rest of the base. There is also a small wooden 'plug' on the base to close the space from which the carver had access to the interior. The cross is joined to the base by a small piece of doweling. All sides of the cross and base are carved, with the exception of the under surface of the horizontal arms and, of course, the bottom. The cross-shaped portion is divided into six units, front and back, with four frames on the two narrow sides, in which each unit displays a scene from the New Testament. Each of these panels is approximately the size of a single frame of a 35 mm slide i.e. 2 x 3 cm. Although the iconography is quite straight forward, there is an inscription in Latin to accompany almost all panels and identify the scene. The carving produced figures in high relief, almost in the round, and indeed, because there are figures on both sides, the work completely pierces the wood. In front of each unit there are two columns which are carved in spirals, although sometimes in the base and in two cases on the cross, the columns are missing where they would obscure the scene. These “missing” columns have not been broken; they have been omitted on purpose. That this is so is clear from a careful examination of the carving, under magnification, where just the base and the top have been included. 15

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(Plates 8, 9) On the base, which is stepped into five registers, three sets of images are arranged in a similar fashion to the top. However, here the scenes are not quite so easily recognized, and do not have inscriptions. An unusual feature here is the common background which is repeated from one unit to another. This suggests to me that the images represent various scenes from the performance of a play. This idea will be discussed passim by all three contributors. The scenes on the cruciform portion are identified as follows: CROSS FRONT (Plate 6) Annunciation Annuntiatio Mary’s Entrance to the Temple, Nativity+Magi+Shepherds, Nativitas St. John preaching + Baptism of Christ,. Presentation in the temple Purgatio Entry into Jerusalem Palmarum Celebratio SIDE PANEL Right (Plate 20) Flight into Egypt Fugagenitries dei Christ teaching or as a child among the elders Christus docet Christ addressing a group of women XPS docet Marias Raising of Lazarus Resurectio Lazari CROSS BACK (Plate 7) Transfiguration transformatio Raising of the cross (no insc. ) Piercing of side, flanked by two thieves. crucificatio Descent from the cross (no insc.) Entombment sepulcrum Anastasis (Byzantine style) resurectio SIDE PANEL Left (Plate 31) Entombment depositio dni in sepulcru Doubting Thomas. palpatio Ascension ascensio dei Pentecost pentecoste The identification of the panels on the base are here numbered only, as the sequence of reading is not very obvious. Should it be left to right, top to bottom, or some other pattern?

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BASE Side A (Plate 8) Top register — 8 panels, two larger, one of columns only, 4 small male figures (Evangelists?) A1a, arrest in the Garden A1b Trial scene A1c Trial scene A1d Trial scene A2a Betrayal in the Garden A2b Trial scene A2c Trial scene A2c Trial scene A2d Christ carrying the cross A3a Trial scene A3b Trial scene A3c Christ before Pilate, the Flagellation, Rending of Christ’s robe A3d Crucifixion A 4 — a series of geometric elements. Side B (Plate 9) Top register, — the same as A1 B1a Soldiers at the Tomb B1b Woman at the Tomb with an angel or Christ B1c Christ washing the feet of the disciples B1d Garden of Gethsemane B2a Women at the Tomb with an angel B2b Women with the disciples B2c Last Supper B2d Christ with Apostles at Emmaus B3a Women at the Tomb with two angels B3b Women with disciples at the Tomb B3c Communion of the Apostles B3d Christ appearing to the Apostles B4 — the same as A4

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DESCRIPTION THECROSS Top Horizontal Surface of the cross bar and the upright post (Plates 10–12) On the right side there is a three-quarter length figure of St. Peter, (Pl. 10) identifiable by the large key which he holds in his left hand. He is bearded and in his right hand he holds a book. Multiple folds of drapery cover his right shoulder, right arm and lower torso. In the middle space is a grotesque mask (Pl. 11) with open mouth. On the left side is another three-quarter length figure, probably intended as St. Paul (Pl. 12). He too is bearded, wears similar drapery, and holds a book in his right hand. Both men have very similar facial features. All three are framed by a triple row of a stylized twist motif. FRONT The individual scenes are framed by a vine scroll which encloses stylized fleurettes. The three scenes of the cross bar are separated by spiral columns with decorated capitals and bases. The individual scenes also contain one or more minute spiral columns supporting arcades of ornamented spandrels. In some cases one spiral column is missing, even though the base and capital are included, but it is clear on examination with a magnifying glass that this item has not been broken off. It was omitted in order not to obscure the scene. Annunciation ANNUNTIATIO (Plate 13) Luke 1:26–38 Mary and the archangel Gabriel stand inside separate pergola-like structures, while “rays of light” extend from the top left corner. These “rays of light” seem to be part of the technical props which appear in a number of scenes.1 Each pergola, which is set on an ornamented stepped base, has a decorated roof with a substantial finial. The bottom seems to consist of a large screw mechanism which could have been used to raise and lower the platform. Alternatively this may just represent steps. 1

See pls. 16,17, 34 for example.

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The structure in which Mary stands, on the right, is higher than that provided for the angel. Each elevated pergola is reached by means of a flight of steps. The angel appears to be bending his knees, but is not fully kneeling, and he stretches out his right arm towards Mary in a gesture of speech. She stands with her arms folded in front of a highbacked chair, a reading stand to her left, on which is placed an open book. The elevation and architectural separation of these figures represents a reference to their relative hierarchical status. While the earliest images of the Annunciation seem to take place outdoors, often in a garden, the painted scenes which are contemporary with this cross often show a domestic interior. Young Mary in the Temple (Plate 14) The image on the left of the crossbar is somewhat problematic and it is not identified by a label. We see an outdoor scene, with a wall and two crenellated towers, such as appear in many panels on the base. To the right is the same pergola in which Mary stands in the Annunciation scene, including the access stairs and the high backed chair. Inside that is a figure standing in front of the chair. To the left, in front of the wall, a group of about a dozen women faces a tall figure, probably a man (Zachariah?) In the background is a tall candlestick with a candle, and above that is a hanging lamp. There is a spiral column behind the male figure while the one which should appear in front has been purposely eliminated. The identification of this scene may be one of two. It could be a scene from the protoevangelium of James,2 showing the episode where Mary lived in the temple for forty days (or nine years) and was fed by a raven (or an angel). Alternatively, it may be the story of Mary being chosen to weave the new veil for the temple, and the women are the unhappy virgins who were not chosen. The lamp and the candlestick suggest the setting for the temple, even though the towers and wall tell us that this is an outdoor setting. Either way, it seems to repre-

For a full discussion of these sources and their Byzantine origins, see Jacqueline Lafontaine-Dosogne, “The Iconography of the Cycle of the Life of the Virgin,” P.Underwood, The Kariye Djami vol 4, Studies in the Art of the Kariye Djami and Its Intellectual Background, pp. 161–194 2

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sent a scene from the youth of Mary, as a preliminary to the scene of the Nativity which follows. Nativity NATIVITAS (Plates 15, 16) Luke 2: 1–14 This scene is extremely crowded, containing no less than fifteen figures, albeit two of them are represented as heads only, plus three horses, two oxen and the heads of two donkeys or possibly one donkey and one camel. The scenes are represented in two overlapping registers. On the top left is the Annunciation to the shepherds by an angel who looks away from them, over his right wing. One kneeling shepherd and two represented as heads only are overlooking what may be a hill, the top of a cave, or the roof of the stable, any of which may appear in a scene of the Nativity. Above them are rays of light which end in a star, centred on the roof. This is almost identical to the “rays of light” in the scene of the Annunciation, Plate 13 and Pentecost, Plate 34, and should be noted as possibly one of the dramatic props used in three different scenes. A second angel with outstretched wings completes the top right. Below that angel are three figures. These are probably meant to be more shepherds, all viewing the central scene. One in the background appears to be kneeling, and he holds his hand to his head in amazement. Alternatively this might be Joseph, in the traditional pose. The one in the middle ground holds a short staff in his left hand, and he too holds his hand to his head, touching his wide-brimmed hat. He has a beard and long hair which extends over his shoulders. The seated figure in the foreground appears to be a woman, with her head uncovered. She holds something between her knee and her mouth which looks remarkably like a bagpipe.3 On the lower left are two crowned figures on horseback, representing Magi. A third horse emerges behind the other two presumably belonging to the kneeling figure in the foreground. He faces a standing figure who seems to be a woman. Behind these two figures are two more scenes, one of the midwife or a servant bathing the child in a large round vessel, such as appears often in Byzantine art.4 To the right of this the seated figure of Mary turns back to See Discussion p. 38 See J. Lafontaine-Dosogne, op.cit., “The Iconography of the Cycle of the Infancy of Christ,” pp. 197–241, passim. 3 4

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look on while in front of her she holds a small child thus conflating two scenes from the life of Christ i.e. the First Bath, and the Adoration of the Magi. There are two bars which run diagonally in front of the child, perhaps representing a walker. Above to the left and right are the heads of two animals, that on the right probably a donkey, that on the left, because of its long neck and the shape of its muzzle, possibly a camel. Between them is a bird's eye view of two oxen. Baptism (Plate 17) Matthew 2: 16–17, Mark 1: 9–11 The panel is divided into three segments. On the left, John the Baptist is elevated on a pile of rocks. A banderole runs diagonally over his left shoulder to the top of the panel. He gestures with his right arm and hand to a small group of people, represented by two full figures and two heads. In the middle is the scene of John baptizing Christ in the river Jordan, except we must note that there is no representation of the river. Above, once again, is the now familiar representation of light, to which is attached a rather large dove descending over the head of Christ. On the right is an elevated figure, also connected by a diagonal banderole reaching to the top of the panel. This is possibly meant to be God the Father, or alternatively an Old Testament prophet, to balance John the Baptist as a New Testament prophet. In front of the figure with the banderole are three angels with outstretched wings, witnessing the Baptism. Presentation in the Temple PURGATIO (Plate 18) Luke 2: 22–38 Above the scene is the inscription Purgatio. The figures are placed in an architectural setting which is pure fantasy. It might work as a stage set, but it does not have the substance of a real building. The centre represents a baldachino supported on four spindly columns, while the two side arches are set in line with the back columns. Barrel vaulting over the columns supports three small towers, or lanterns with windows and octagonal roofs topped with elaborate finials. From underneath each of the vaulted ceilings hangs a lamp, of the same variety as shown in the panel to the left of the Nativity, thus confirming that this is a representation of the temple in Jerusalem. On the left is a female figure, probably the prophetess Anna who resided in the temple; in the middle Mary hands the infant Jesus to Simeon, while in the background, on the right,

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is another male figure, identified as Joseph, standing in front of a high backed chair. Entry into Jerusalem PALMARUM CELEBRATIO (Plate 19) Matthew 20: 6–11 Above the image is the inscription Palmarum Celebratio. On the upper left is a cypress tree in which three small figures may be seen clinging to the branches. At ground level a crowd of men watches as Christ rides sidesaddle on a donkey towards another crowd of people who again seem to be predominantly male. The figure in the front is placing a cloak in front of the donkey, in the alternate iconography for this event, i.e. a cloak instead of palm branches. This is a well known Byzantine iconography for the Entry into Jerusalem. None of the figures is waving palm branches, in spite of the inscription. The apparent northern Italian setting would not provide access to palm branches, other than artificial ones, so the use of cloaks is appropriate. The scene takes place in front of crenellated city walls and towers, as occurs above in the first temple scene and frequently in the base. SIDE PANEL RIGHT Flight into Egypt FUGAGENITRIES DEI (Plate 20) Matthew 1: 13–15 The inscription informs us that this scene is Fugagenitries Dei. The tower and city wall appear once again. On top of the wall is an angel, in a partially kneeling pose and with wings outstretched. Joseph, with a bundle on his back, walks behind the donkey on which Mary and the child sit sidesaddle. A third figure, a man in a wide-brimmed hat, holds the bridle of the donkey and faces Mary. In fact, he closely resembles the figure in a wide-brimmed hat in the scene of the Nativity. An alternative identification might be that the figure in the hat is Joseph, and the man with a bundle is his son by his earlier marriage. A similar arrangement, but representing the Journey to Bethlehem, may be seen in the mosaics of the Kariye Djami in Istanbul.5

Paul Underwood, The Kariye Djami, vol. 2, Bollingen Foundation, 1966, page 152, colour detail p. 155, text fol. 1, p. 87. 5

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Christ Teaching CHRISTUS DOCET (Plate 21) The inscription at the top identifies the scene as Christus Docet. The interior of the temple, as seen earlier in the Selection of Mary, and the Presentation in the Temple, i.e. three arches and a hanging lamp, also includes the raised platform/pergola of the Annunciation scene and the Selection of Mary. Since the figure of Christ is somewhat small this time, the scene must be Christ as a child teaching in the Temple. He sits on the raised platform in front of a stand on which a book is placed. Before him is the crowd of elders who listen attentively. Christ Teaching the Marys XPS DOCET MARIAS (Plate 22) The inscription at the bottom reads XPS Docet Marias. The abbreviation which has been used for Christus in the inscription, instead of Latin is the Greek form XPS. An adult, possibly bearded, figure of Christ stands under a diagonally projecting flat roofed porch. He holds a knobbed walking stick in his left hand and addresses a group of women who crowd into the space in front of him. Once again we see a tower and a crenellated city wall. Inside the porch is a tripartite window. Raising of Lazarus RESURECTIO LAZARI (Plate 23) John 11: 32–44 The left background holds the city wall and tower, a crowd of people, and in the foreground the figure of Christ gesturing towards the tomb to call forth Lazarus. One of the sisters of Lazarus kneels at his feet, with her back to the tomb. On the right side is a rectangular structure, with the bound figure of Lazarus standing in the doorway. A man lifts away the door of the tomb, while another leads Lazarus into the daylight. On top of the tomb are some bushes, depicted in a rather jagged, exaggerated form leaning forward into the scene, such as one might expect on a painted Byzantine icon. Surprisingly, this is the only miracle scene which is depicted on the cross. BACK Transfiguration TRANSFORMATIO (Plate 24) Matthew 17:1–13; Mark 9: 2–10; Luke 9:28–36 The imagery of Transformatio is quite straightforward. Christ in the middle stands on a pile of rocks, to indicate Mount Tabor. He holds a

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scroll in his left hand and turns to the figure on his right, also elevated on rocks, whose hands are covered by drapery. The other figure, on the viewer's right, faces towards Christ while holding a book in his drapery covered hands. In scenes of the Transfiguration, the one holding a book is usually identified as Moses, while the other is the prophet Elijah. Below are the three apostles Peter, James and John, kneeling or falling to the ground. The surprising element in this unit is the lack of an attempt at a mandorla. Other scenes have representations of heavenly light, i.e. the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Baptism, and Pentecost ( q. v. ) so the absence here is notable since the presence of blinding light is a major part of the New Testament story. The two prophets are supposed to be suspended in the air, although they are sometimes found to be standing on small hills. Raising of the Cross (Plate 25) No inscription is provided for this panel. Two ladders, right and left of a central cross, support male figures who appear to be fastening Christ's arms to the cross. This is unusual, as in most images of a crucifixion that process was done before the cross was lifted upright. Indeed a figure near the base of the cross holds a large hammer over his right shoulder. Christ stands on a platform with one foot on top of the other, while leaning heavily to his right. On the left a mixed crowd of women and soldiers observe the proceedings, while the group on the right seems to consist mainly of soldiers, judging by their short kilts, i.e. the uniform of the Roman army. Behind each group a single spear appears. Crucifixion CRUCIFICATIO (Plate 26, 27) Luke 23: 32–47; John 19: 17–18 Crucificatio. All three crosses appear, that of Christ being distinguished by the (empty) name plate which is at the top. The two thieves, who also stand on platforms, have their arms tied over the cross bar, not stretched out to the sides. A large crowd of soldiers stands at the base of both crosses on the side, while in the middle the main figure is that of the kneeling Mary. From the right a reed holding a sponge is held up towards Christ's left side, while from the left a taller sharp pointed spear reaches almost to his face. The position of the two actions seems to be confused as the spear reaches to Christ’s face while the reed reaches only to his side. This may be a hierarchical reference to the

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greater symbolical importance of the piercing of Christ’s side which produced blood and water, a reference to Baptism and the Eucharist. Descent from the Cross (Plate 28) No inscription is provided for this panel. Once again the ladders are placed on either side of the cross. A male figure on the right supports the limp body of Christ while Mary, on the left, clasps his head. Crowds of onlookers fill the spaces on either side, and a wreath, a rather smooth version of the crown of thorns, has now appeared on the cross at the point where the two bars meet. Lamentation SEPULCRUM (Plate 29) The inscription says Sepulcrum, but the event is not the entombment, as it takes place at the foot of the cross. The ladders and the cross with the wreath are still visible. A man on each of the ladders reaches down as if they are still lowering the body. A platform with a foliate base is placed at the foot of the cross. This platform could be read as chalice shaped, an obvious reference to the eucharist. Behind it Mary leans over the body, while other men on the left and women on the right observe the action. In Byzantine iconography this scene appears as a separate episode from the entombment. But the label sepulcrum is inappropriate here as this is more a scene of lamentation than of entombment. Another entombment scene, this time accurately labeled, is found on the left side of the cross, Plate 31, but there the shape of the tomb has changed to a platform with a slatted front, which can also be read as an altar, an obvious liturgical reference. Anastasis RESURECTIO (Plate 30) The scene is labelled Resurectio but the imagery is that of the eastern Anastasis, not the traditional western Resurrection. For this imagery there is no biblical account. At the top two angels with outstretched wings, and kneeling on supports, hold the wreathed cross, while in the foreground Christ stands over the broken gates of Hell. On the left are the images of David and Solomon (crowned), Eve, and the anonymous dead, while on the right Christ pulls Adam up from the grave, surrounded by more figures of the dead. This, of course is not the western

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image of the Resurrection which shows sleeping soldiers and Christ emerging from the tomb. The two groups of figures stand on platforms which have distinctive slats to close their fronts and which appear in several scenes, most notably as the tomb slab on the base. These may be intended to convey sarcophagi which have been interred. SIDE PANEL LEFT Entombment DEPOSITIO DNI IN SEPULCRU (Plate 31) Matthew 27: 57–61; Mark 15:46–47; Luke 24:51–56: John 19:38–42 In this version the inscription is Depositio Dni In Sepulcru . The entombment continues on the side. Now the ladders are empty, the wreathed cross stands behind the slat fronted platform/sarcophagus/altar and a large rectangle, like the lid of a sarcophagus, is propped on an angle at the back of the figures leaning over the body of Christ, lain flat on the slab. A few heads may be seen behind the lid, and in the foreground two women stand on each side, before the platform. Appearance to Thomas PALPATIO (Plate 32) John 20:26–29 A crenellated city wall flanked by two crenellated towers form the background for this scene, labelled Palpatio. The meaning of this scene would be very hard to interpret without this inscription. Two groups of men, five on each side, face towards the middle. That space is dominated by two figures, the one on the left being Thomas who reaches out to touch Christ, who stands on the right. Ascension ASCENSIO DNI (Plate 33) Mark 16: 19–20 The inscription at the bottom reads Ascensio Dni. In the upper register two half length figures of angels support a standing Christ who blesses with his right hand. Instead of the more common puffy clouds underneath His feet, He stands on drapery which covers the hands of the two angels.The drapery appears to cover a horizontal platform which supports the three figures. In the lower register Mary stands frontally, in the orans position, surrounded by four or more registers of men, some of whom gaze upwards at the rising figure of Christ, while those in the front look at her.

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Pentecost (Plate 34) This segment is not labeled. The upper third of the space is filled with jagged shapes in three registers, representing the tongues of flame. This is not unlike the schematic attempts at depicting light in earlier panels such as the divine light in the Annunciation, the Nativity and the Baptism scenes. A curved wall with round windows backs two groups of men, six each, seated against this wall. This represents the synthronon, the curved benches in the apse of a church, behind the altar where the clergy sit. At the bottom centre, under an inverted U-shaped divider, is a crowned, enthroned figure. This figure is usually interpreted as Kosmos, the world, although there are examples where it is labeled as the prophet Joel. In some examples of this iconography the space is left blank.

THE BASE (Plate 8, 9) The topmost register contains two panels of lattice on the sides, a series of arches in the middle, and a figure on each side of the arcade panel. These four figures must represent the four evangelists but there are no distinguishing features to identify them individually. Side A Row 1 Each of the scenes is framed by architectural columns with attached colonnettes. At the top of each column is a “finial” of a half length heavily draped figure (a prophet?) holding a self supporting banderole in the left hand, the right hand raised in blessing. Between each pair of busts is a scallop shell surmounted by scroll work and another finial with a fleurette or possibly a crown. a) Arrest in the Garden ? (Plates 35, 36) The scene is set against a wall and tower with a cypress tree in the right background. The protruding stump of a branch is similar to that in the scene of the Entry into Jerusalem, albeit on the opposite side. (Plate 19) A crowd of male figures, all facing to the left, with the exception of two in the front row, is divided into two groups. The group on the left contains a single spear. In the left foreground two of the men are kneeling. The identification of this scene is rather enigmatic, but it might be the Arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane. The kneeling figures could be

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Peter cutting off the ear of Malchus, one of the guards, but the carving is not sufficiently clear to confirm this identification. b) Trial Scene (Plate 37) There are two registers, joined by a flight of stairs. Two men stand on the stairs, part way up. On the upper register, a figure stands or sits in an arch, which is against a wall and flanked by two towers. On this same level, to the right is another short flight of stairs leading to a balcony or a platform with balustrade, behind which stands a small figure. On the lower register, as if marching towards the stairs are five figures dressed in short skirts, like the Roman soldiers in the crucifixion scenes. There may be a second row of soldiers just hinted at by shallow profile heads, behind the first row. They stand under a ledge supported by consoles. c) Trial Scene (Plates 38, 39) This is an expanded version of the previous scene. The background consists of two adjoining towers without crenellations on the left, a stretch of wall with a shallow canopy, and a crenellated tower with a balcony part way down, and below the balcony a window with a barred grill. On the left are three flights of stairs leading to a balcony. Two soldiers are on the landing between the first and second flights of stairs, while the balcony on the left holds one person who witnesses the scene in the middle, as do two more people in the slightly lower balcony on the right. On the upper level one man stands, another sits. The latter wears something on his head, perhaps the insignia of Caiaphas, the High Priest of the Jews, or of Pilate, while the standing figure would be Christ who appears again in the lower register wearing his Crown of Thorns. A dog wearing a collar sits beside the steps and behind two rows of Roman soldiers. They stand behind Christ, as he faces a slightly smaller man who stands in front of a free standing panel with reinforcement bars, supported from behind by another soldier. The building with a barred window is presumably a prison to which Christ is being led. d) Trial Scene (Plates 40,41) The background contains three-quarters of the previous scene, minus the balcony on the right. No one is in the balcony on the left. Two soldiers stand on the landing between the first and second flights of stairs. On the upper level two figures address the seated figure of

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Caiaphas/Pilate who is considerably larger than they are. The size is an indication of status, as is the fact that he is seated while the others remain standing. Given this clear indication of power, the two smaller figures could be asking Caiaphas for advice how to proceed to get a condemnation of Christ, or asking Pilate for a guilty verdict for Christ. On the lower level four soldiers march towards the steps. Row 2 a) Betrayal in the Garden (Plates 42, 43) In the background two crenellated towers flank a short stretch of wall. A group of soldiers fills the space, and three spears extend above their heads. A lantern is supported on one of the spears. In the middle foreground is a scene of the Betrayal, as Judas kisses Christ to identify him. This crowded scene is the Arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane. b) Trial Scene (Plates 44, 45) The background is the same as in the left half of Row I C, but includes a crenellated tower on the right. On the lowest level are five soldiers, marching to the left. A person with drapery over his/her head stands on the first landing, facing the next set of stairs. On the platform, a seated male figure, wearing a beard and possibly a crown,( Caiaphas?) faces left to talk with another standing figure, also with a covered head. In the balcony on the left, on the topmost level, the upper half of another much smaller figure, probably female, may be seen. c) Trial Scene (Plates 46, 47) The background is similar to Row I C, with the addition of two flights of steps on the right. This time the soldiers at the base are in two sets of three, on each side, leaving the centre clear. We see a supporting pillar underneath the consoles which in turn support the platform. On the right, standing on the landing at the top of the first flight of stairs, is a bearded male, dressed in full length drapery. On the left, on the same level, are two more soldiers, one on the landing, one part way up the steps. They face the platform where two heavily draped figures are deep in conversation. To the left are two more figures, one in full length drapery, the other dressed as a soldier. This pair may be Christ and a guard. They face the seated pair. The balcony on the left is empty this time.

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d) Christ Carrying the Cross (Plates 48, 49) A crowd of soldiers surrounds the figure of Christ carrying his cross. Several tall spears may be seen behind the men, and a banner flies from the spear of the soldier who leads the group. Row 3 a) Trial Scene (Plates 50, 51) The same setting appears as in Row 2 d), condensed into a smaller space. On the lowest level five soldiers, marching to the left, fill in the space between the two flights of stairs. The scene is a composite of Row 2 c) and d). A draped figure stands on the left middle landing, and there is a small figure in the balcony. On the right two figures stand on the landing, as if about to climb the stairs, the one in the foreground dressed as a soldier, the one in the background in the usual drapery. On the platform are two seated figures, one under the canopy, the other appears to be outside it. The colonette on the left has been eliminated for better viewing. Only the base and capital are included. b) Trial Scene (Plates 52, 53) The setting remains the same, minus the right hand stairs. The five soldiers appear in the lower register, (one of whom pats a seated dog), there are two more soldiers plus a draped figure on the first landing on the left, and a woman above them in the balcony. On the right, on the platform, is another soldier, and in the middle, seated, is a draped and crowned figure. As in the preceding scene, the colonette in front of the figure has been eliminated with the exception of the base and capital. c) Christ before Pilate, The Flagellation, The Rending of Christ’s Robe (Plates 54, 55) The same setting is extended to include a stretch of plain wall and a free-standing spiral column on the right. On the bottom register a few soldiers face to the left, towards the steps, while those in the middle face each other, holding a piece of cloth (Christ’s robe?). To the right are two more, one of whom holds a flail, or whip. In front of the freestanding spiral column is the figure of Christ, about to be whipped, and two more soldiers face him. On the left, on the first landing are two soldiers, and above them the balcony is empty. On the platform, to the left are two figures, one draped, one dressed as a soldier. In the middle,

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the crowned figure (Caiaphas/Pilate?) turns towards them as if speaking. The spiral column in the lower register is certainly reminiscent of the one in St. Peter’s in Rome, said to have been used in Christ’s flagellation. Thus we have three episodes represented here. The upper register can be identified as Christ, accompanied by a guard, before Pilate. In the lower register, in the middle, the soldiers quarrel over Christ’s robe and to the right the flagellation ordered by Pilate is about to begin. d) Crucifixion (?) (Plates 56, 57) The background consists of two crenellated towers and a stretch of wall. Two spears project upwards on each side. The foreground is filled with soldiers and one draped figure. In the middle is a man on the left with a large hammer over his shoulder, and opposite him is another figure who leans forward to grasp the upright pole which may have represented a cross. This piece is actually broken, but the background behind it is completed, so although this looks like an accidental break, i.e. the wood is a lighter colour, it is hard to understand how anything could have been there in front of the wall. Might this have been a scene of Simon of Cyrene, about to carry the cross for Christ? Side B Row 1 a ) Soldiers at the Tomb (Plates 58, 59) Two crenellated towers flank a stretch of wall with several slit windows. Three spears may be seen against the wall. On the lower part, six soldiers (?) sit in a row against the platform/sarcophagus seen in other panels and on top of the platform are four unidentifiable irregular lumps. Might these be the soldiers’ helmets? On either side of them is a triangular shape, slightly larger. This scene represents the soldiers guarding the tomb of Christ, in traditional western iconography. b) Women at the tomb with an angel or Christ (Plates 60, 61) Same background as in a) except for a corbelled ledge on the wall and both towers. The ledge is above the heads of the figures and represents the platform/sarcophagus seen earlier. Architecturally it makes no sense. The identification here is rather ambiguous. It does not fully match any of the three accounts, Matthew 28: 1–7, tells us there were

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two women and one angel; Mark 16: 1–8 tells us there were three women and one “youth” wearing a white robe; Luke 24: 1–11describes three women and two men “ in dazzling robes.; John 20: 11–17 says there was one woman and two angels. On the left are three women facing either an angel or the figure of Christ. It is not possible to distinguish wings here, so the account of Mark is probably used here, especially since a clearly winged figure appears in Row 2a. Behind “the youth” is a flat structure with a series of vertical supports in its lower part. Presumably this is meant to represent the slab on which the body of Christ was placed. It is also seen in the scene of the Anastasis on the top cruciform piece. c) Christ Washing the Feet of the Disciples (Plates 62, 63) The scene is that of Christ washing the feet of his disciples. As happens also in the top portion, this is an event which took place indoors, but is depicted here outdoors, possibly a courtyard. The background consists of two towers and three levels of wall. Two of the walls have a balcony, that on the left holding one figure, while the one on the right holds two figures. A flight of steps behind the disciples runs up to the one on the right. Underneath that balcony on the right there is one seated figure with his foot in a large pedestal bowl, while three others stand behind him The seated figure may be identified as Peter who according to the gospel account first refused, then when Christ reprimanded him he asked Christ to wash his head also. The hand raised to his head suggests this identification. On the left side the figure of Christ, distinguished from the others by his long hair, stands before the pedestal bowl, while behind him two rows of four figures line up. This constitutes the requisite twelve men, plus three witnesses in the balconies. d) The Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane (Plates 64, 65) The scene again shows the Garden of Gethsemane. An angel hovers in the air on the right, while the kneeling figure of Christ may be seen just below on the left praying for deliverance. Below Him are three seated figures, and in front of them the figure of Christ again, probably admonishing them for sleeping. In this frame therefore, we have two separate episodes in one unit.

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Row 2 a) Women at the Tomb with an Angel (Plates 66, 67) The background is the same as in la) and b). On the right an angel with large wings sits on the platform representing the empty tomb. On the left a group of three women approaches the angel. b) Women with the Disciples (Plate 68, 69) In the same location, the three women, on the left, address a group of eleven men on the right, i.e. all the remaining disciples. The women are reporting to them that the body of Christ is gone and that they have seen the risen Christ. The disciples take the news very calmly, and perhaps this is Mark 16: 9–11, which describes the mens’ disbelief. c) Last Supper (Plates 70, 71) The background shows two towers, a stretch of wall, and a larger tower in the middle, in front of which is a sort of ogive archway. The scene is that of the Last Supper. Christ sits under the arch, or canopy, while a man reaches towards him holding something or preparing to pick up something. This must be Judas about to be sent out. Unidentifiable items lie on the table, representing food. The rest of the disciples, eleven excluding Judas, are seated at the sides and front of the table. d) Christ with Apostles at Emmaus ( Plates 72,73) The setting is two towers and a short stretch of wall. In front two groups of men face each other, nine on the left, four on the right. Possibly the foremost figure on the right could be Christ. He appears to be bearded, but is not shown larger than the others.The identification of the scene is not clear but might be the meeting on the road to Emmaus. Row 3 a) Women at the Tomb with two Angels (Plates 74, 75) The scene mirrors that of 2a) above, except that there are two angels seated on the tomb. The three women are in the same place as above. This may be the scene described in Luke 24, 1–11, of three women and two men “in dazzling robes.”

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b) Women with Disciples at the Tomb (Plates 76, 77) The two towers appear much further in front of the wall. On the left is a long flight of stairs which leads to a platform such as has appeared before, supported by a series of corbels. This time however, it is empty. At ground level, on the left, are three figures, possibly all women. (cf. above) On the left, underneath the platform, is the empty smaller platform representing the tomb/sarcophagus. Behind it stand six men. Towards the front right hand corner are four more men, while the eleventh one stands in the middle foreground, in front of the "empty tomb", bowing towards the women. c) Communion of the Apostles (Plates 78, 79) The background shows two plain towers, some crenellated wall, a crenellated tower on the right, and the larger tower in the middle as in 2c) directly above. On the left are two flights of stairs leading to a small projecting balcony which is empty. In the middle, in front of the tower, is a gazebo with arched openings. The figure of Christ stands inside, holding a chalice in his hands which are covered by drapery. This represents the communion of the apostles, an image which occurs in Byzantine art but rarely, if at all, in western art. On the left are four men, waiting, while a fifth is slightly separated and closer to Christ. Behind Christ, but outside the gazebo is a sixth figure and further back again another group, of five men, await their turn. This makes a total of eleven, an appropriate number. This image is placed immediately below the scene of the Last Supper and represents the more liturgical rendering of the Last Supper as the institution of the ritual of the Eucharist. d) Christ Appearing at Emmaus (Plates 80, 81) Same background as in A3a) The balcony and steps on the left are empty. On the right one man is in the process of climbing the stairs, approaching the seated figures. This seems to illustrate Luke 24: 13 — 30, describing the meeting between Christ and two of the apostles, and their subsequent offer of hospitality. On the platform, underneath a baldachino are three rather cramped seated figures, two on the left, one on the right. Underneath the floor of that platform three seated figures on the left face a single seated figure on the right in what seems to be an animated conversation. This matches the continuation of the story above, given in Luke 24: 33–5, when the same two disciples quickly returned to Jerusalem to tell the others of their meeting with Christ.

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Order of scenes as described, with an arbitrary beginning and end. 1Aa

1Ab

Arrest in Trial the Gar- scene den of Gethsemane

2Aa

2Ab

1Ac

2Ac

Trial

Trial

3Aa

3Ab

3Ac

Trial

1Ba

1Bb

1Bc

Soldiers at the Tomb

Women at the Tomb with a single figure

Christ Garden Washing of Geththe feet semane of the Disciples

2Ba

2Bb

2Bc

2Bd

Women Christ Carrying at the Women the Cross tomb address with one disciples angel

Last Supper

Christ with Apostles at Emmaus

3Ad

3Bd

Larger trial Trial scene, scene including dog

Betrayal

Trial

1Ad

2Ad

Pilate,the Nailing Flagella- to Cross tion & Rending of Christ’s Robe

3Ba

3Bb

3Bc

Women at the Tomb with 2 angels

Women & disciples at empty tomb

Communion of apostles

1Bd

Christ appearing at Emmaus

DISCUSSION OF ICONOGRAPHY SHEILA CAMPBELL The cross and the base are a mixture of eastern and western style and content. The background architecture, so prevalent in the panels on the base, appears to be that of northern Italy.1 That is appropriate for the proposed provenance of this work, as suggested by the box. The carving style, consisting of miniature figures and overall ornament, exists in thousands of examples in the eastern orthodox church. Small crosses, medallions, diptychs and plaques are common in Byzantine collections and in contemporary use.2 They are usually carved in cypress wood. But the figures on those pieces do not contain the kind of detailed narrative which we see on this cross. The Byzantine objects show standard New Testament iconography, occasional Old Testament references, and some specific saints. A comparable work in ivory, early 15th century Milan, may be seen in a diptych now in the Smithsonian Gallery. 3The Malcove cross, catalogue # 3064 could be considered Byzantine if we had only the top portion. But the narrative scenes on the base tell us See Sir Bannister Fletcher’s A History of Architecture, 18th edition, pp. 741c, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, p. 745, D) Palazzo Publico, Siena, F) Palazzo dei Priori, Volterra, H) Palazzo Publico, Montepulcianao. 2 See Malcove catalogue nos. 302,303,304,309,310 with further bibliography. Many additional examples may be seen in the Kannelopolis and Benaki Museums in Athens. See Post Byzantium: The Greek Renaissance, 15th — 18th Century Treasures from the Byzantine and Christian Museum, Athens, Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Athens 2002, pp 146,147. 3 Erwin O. Christensen, Objects of Medieval Art, National Gallery of Art, Smithsonian, Washingon, 1952, pp. 26–7. 4 The University of Toronto Malcove Collection, ed. Sheila Campbell, University of Toronto Press, 1994. 1

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that a different culture is at work here, as do the Latin inscriptions on the top. And once that western element is recognized on the base, we can then detect more evidence of it on the cross as well, as will be pointed out in the discussion which follows. However, although there will be some further back and forth discussion between top and base a bit later, we must begin with a logical progression, starting with the top. The scene of the Annunciation (pl. 13) shows the angel and Mary set apart in two separate pergolas. In Byzantine art, the scene is often outdoors, occasionally beside a well, and when architecture and landscape are present, they are highly distorted in typical Byzantine fashion. This is a continuation of the intention of Byzantine artists especially in icon painting, to remove all traces of specific time and place, and to show the event as happening in the present (viewer’s) time. In the mid to late fourteenth century, in a large altarpiece, the painter Duccio places Gabriel and Mary into specific indoor settings, and often uses a device similar to these pergolas.5 On the same altarpiece by Duccio, the scene of the Presentation in the Temple contains hanging lamps, similar to ones which appear in several panels on the Malcove cross. (Pls. 14, 18, 21) While it is true that these painted comparanda precede our cross by half a century or more, my intention is only to suggest that the carver may well have seen this and similar works. Byzantine scenes of the Nativity seldom have so many figures, and if several scenes are included i.e. the annunciation to the shepherds, the adoration of the shepherds, the adoration of the Magi, then they are usually shown as separate, though smaller scenes especially on an icon. Here ( pls. 15,16) we have all of these elements crowded into a very small space. The shepherd’s hat, and the bagpipe may be seen combined in one figure in a work from further north, in France, namely the Très Riche Heures of the Duc de Berry, in the Annunciation to the Shepherds.6 The appearance of a bagpipe in the hands of a shepherd is From the early 14th C Maestà by Duccio, painted for the Duomo in Siena. The scene of Annunciation of the Death of the Virgin may be seen in Bruce Cole, Sienese Painting from its Origins to the 15th Century, NY 1978, pl. 77. 6 Paul de Limbourg of Limbourg Brothers, around 1411–16, Ms. 65, Musée Condé, Chantilly, Annunciation to the Shepherds, F 48r. See the facsimile volume, Jean Longnon, The Tres Riches Heures of Jean, Duc de Berry, 5

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not unique to this carving, but it certainly is not a common image in Byzantine work. In the Baptism of Christ (Plate 17), the carver has made no attempt to show the river Jordan. The water is always shown in paintings, but here it is conspicuously absent. Instead, we have two piles of rocks to indicate the shores of the river, and the story is conveyed by the presence of Jesus and John the Baptist, plus the other essential elements, namely angels and the dove of the Holy Spirit. In a theatrical performance these details would identify the scene, so the presence of a river is merely implied. The Presentation in the Temple (Plate 18) is confirmed by the lamps and the strange architectural setting. This is a flimsy construction which is very much like the paintings of Duccio and later Sienese painters such as Giovanni di Paolo.7 Again it is important to note that these paintings predate the cross by a substantial number of decades. I merely suggest that the artist might have been influenced by a visual stimulus which was very familiar to him, even traditional. The Entry into Jerusalem (Plate 19) also resembles the Maestà back panel. There we see a similar architectural setting, of the wall of a northern Italian city, and the people throwing down their cloaks before Christ on the donkey, rather than palm branches. In the Duccio painting, the trees are not cypresses. But we must note that the cypress tree in Plate 19 has a short projecting stump and this specific form appears again in the base.(pls. 37,38), seen from the opposite direction. This evidence may be used as one more argument for the identification of these scenes as the performance of a play, with the same setting for two different episodes or a reference to a pattern book, an image used repeatedly. It is also worth noting that the use of cloaks instead of palm branches, both of which are accepted iconography for the Entry into Jerusalem, makes sense in a place which is unlikely to have palm branches as they would not be readily available in northern Italy. New York, 1969, pl. 44. A web version of this image may be seen at http://www.prydein.com/pipes/mnu1/ tresrichesheures.html 7 Christopher Lloyd, Italian Paintings before 1600 in the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago 1993, pp. 110–128, Giovanni di Paolo (c. Siena 1482) six scenes from the Life of St. John the Baptist. Note especially the flimsy supports and high arches.

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The Flight into Egypt (pl. 20) is one of the examples where the spiral column is absent to better show the scene. The column is not broken, it has been omitted. Christ Teaching, (pl. 21) includes the interior of the temple, as seen earlier in the Selection of Mary, and the Presentation in the Temple, i.e. three arches and a hanging lamp, and also includes the raised platform/pergola of the Annunciation scene and the Selection of Mary. This is an actual constructed object which is used in three different scenes. A second episode of Christ teaching, but only to six women, is rather unusual. ( pl. 22) It is labelled as Christ teaching the Marys. The three Marys is feasible, i.e. Mary his mother, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the sister of Martha and Lazarus. But who then are the other three in this image? The scene is placed outdoors, with Christ standing in a little portico, set against a wall. Another noteworthy feature here is the inscription XPS, which is Greek, rather than the Latin Dni, which appears elsewhere. However, the cult of the Holy Name uses this form in multiple instances, though more often after the Resurrection, 8so we note this, but cannot make much of the fact. Plate 23 is identified as the Raising of Lazarus. The setting is outdoors, and seemingly outside of the city, as a crenellated city wall is shown to end on one side, before the open tomb. Of course one would expect a cemetery to be outside the city wall. Plate 24 represents the Transfiguration. But instead of a mountain setting, each of the three figures stands on a pile of rocks. These piles of rock are remarkably similar to those in Plate 17, the scene of the Baptism of Christ. This takes us back to the argument that this scene is part of the performance of a play. The rocks simply suggest a mountain, as the latter would be very difficult to provide as a theatrical prop. Alternatively we can consider the old theory of pattern books, a collection of stock images in an artist’s repertoire which can be used repeatedly. Plate 29 is labeled Sepulcrum, but the internment takes place at the foot of the cross. In addition, the support on which the body is being placed is not the same as the tomb slab which appears in many subse-

8

I am grateful to Dr. Elizabeth New for this suggestion.

DISCUSSION OF ICONOGRAPHY

41

quent frames, for instance pls. 30, 31. Just what that support may be is not very clear. The scene entitled resurectio is not the usual western depiction of the resurrection, with Christ emerging from a tomb, surrounded by sleeping Roman soldiers. Instead it is the traditional Byzantine Anastasis, with Christ standing on the broken gates of hell, pulling Adam and Eve from the grave, surrounded by Kings David and Solomon on the left, and crowds of the anonymous dead. But Adam and Eve kneel on rectangular boxes with slatted fronts (sarcophagi?)which keep reappearing in later images. Plate 31 seems redundant, in view of pl. 29, but the scene this time is labeled depositio dni in sepulcru The body lies on top of the box as described in pl. 30 It is surrounded by many figures, some of whom lean over it in a traditional scene of Lamentation. Plate 32 , palpatio, skips to the meeting of Thomas with Jesus, in Jerusalem. There are no images of the women meeting Christ at the tomb after the Resurrection. Here Thomas addresses Christ, against a background of the city wall. There is no interior, as described in the gospel of John (20:26–29). Pl. 33, ascensio dni is the only scene where obvious props are not visible. But the line of drapery of the clothing of the angels and of Christ seems to cover a horizontal platform which supports all three figures. Pl. 34 The jagged rows of triangles representing the tongues of fire for Pentecost are a rather clumsy representation of flames, but are very similar to plates. 16,17, for the star of Bethlehem and the dove of the Holy Spirit at the Baptism. If this was a theatrical prop it may have had multiple uses with slight variations.

THE BASE While the images on the top portion of the cross are easily identified, and the inscriptions mostly unnecessary,9 the images on the base are not so easily named. Even more than on the top portion they use the same settings over and over again, suggesting that these could be stage In Byzantine art inscriptions are often provided even when they do not seem to be necessary. This is especially true in icons and is a reference to the importance of “The Word” as much as the image 9

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sets for the performance of a play based on the Passion. The sixteenth century painting by Vincenzo Rustici, Procession of the Contade,10 shows just such a town square with a celebration of a festival in Siena. The two-level sets, with platform, variable stairs and balconies are used in several different combinations. These may indicate that the sets were moved, or that the action took place on different sides of the town square, with each set being used for different parts of the trial, and some scenes set against a wall without sets. 9 The architecture of this background is remarkably like that of Siena, as shown in a number of 15th century paintings. The crenellated city walls and towers may be seen in the work of Pietro Lorenzetti, Consignment of the Rule10, The Way to Calvary11, Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Effects of Good Government in the Town and Country.12 Similar arrangements of rooms, platforms, balconies and stairs with crenellations above may be seen in Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s St. Nicholas Resurrecting a Child13 Similarly the barred window, as seen in the flagellation scene, flimsy unstable architectural supports, and high arches may be seen in Giovanni Di Paolo’s Six Scenes from the Life of St. John the Baptist ( 1455/60)14 Also of note is the Duccio Maestà (1311) especially The Denial of Peter, and Christ before Annias, in the Siena Museo del Opera del Duomo.15 And on the back of this same altarpiece, the Entry into Jerusalem shows the people using cloaks rather than palms, and for the Flagellation, Christ is fastened to a spiral column. None of these comparisons are meant to propose a firm provenance of Siena for this piece, but merely to show that the artist who carved the cross could well have seen those paintings which subsequently might have become his models. Alternatively, if the performance theory is accepted, then the carver might have seen the performance in a similar setting. The style and content of the images is therefore largely western, since Byzantine imagery would show the landscape and architecture as distorted and exaggerated. Yet the frames Bryan Holme, Medieval Pageant, London 1987, p. 38. Cole, op. cit. Pl. 58. Siena, Pinacoteca Nazionale. 12 loc. cit., pl. 64, Assisi, San Francesco. 13 loc. cit. pl. 80. 14 loc. cit. pl. 77. 15 Lloyd, op. cit., pp. 110–128. 16 Cole op. cit., pl. 26. 10 11

DISCUSSION OF ICONOGRAPHY

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which surround each scene are very Byzantine in style as is the very concept of such an object as well. One thing which remains unclear is the order in which the panels on the base should be read. Does one proceed horizontally or vertically, top to bottom or bottom to top, and where is the starting point? In light of the analyses which follow, emphasizing that the purpose of this cross was individual meditation, not the illustration of a narrative, then perhaps the question is irrelevant, as one can only concentrate, or meditate, on one panel at a time.

THE CARVER GEORGIOS LASKARIS SHEILA CAMPBELL Lest this object be considered unique, I include here (Plate 82, 83) images of a cross which is so similar that we can say with some confidence, that it was even made by the same carver We can see repeated images of flights of steps for example, and enough of the details to realize that this is also a series of scenes of the Passion of Christ.1 Unfortunately this object was destroyed in the bombing of Berlin at the end of the Second World War. It was never studied in detail, nor do photographs of the individual panels exist, so we cannot do a precise comparison. In fact there are several highly similar crosses, which have been brought together as a group by Victor H. Elbern2 in an article in which he establishes the identity of the carver of an unsigned cross in Berlin.3 On that cross the inscriptions are in Greek. In the article he describes briefly some thirty-six crosses, now found in major collections across Europe. Surprisingly he does not seem to know of the existence of the Malcove cross, although it was first published as a catalogue entry in 1982. He mentions a cross in the Stavrovouni monastery (Cyprus) dated 1566, yet a cross from that same monastery, with scenes from the Old and New Testament signed and dated 1526 has been published

This cross was briefly described in W.Volbach, Bildwerke des KaiserFriedrich Museums, p. 108–110, and illustrated on p. 115 2 Victor H. Elbern, op.cit, fn. 1. 3 Not the same one as in plate 82, destroyed in 1945. 1

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elsewhere.4 Perhaps there has been some re- examination of the inscription, or maybe this is a further example. Some of the crosses which Elbern presents have inscriptions which provide a date. Approximately half of the crosses have Passion scenes on the base, while the other half have Old Testament selections. Eight of those crosses are signed by the carver George Laskaris. The similarity of those crosses to the Malcove cross is sufficiently close that one may say with some confidence that he is the carver of this cross as well. The ornamented frames of each panel, and the tiny spiral columns are the same. The composition is laid out in the same manner. The whole group of crosses which Elbern has assembled ranges in date from 1538 to 1684, thus suggesting an ongoing workshop or perhaps a second or even third generation of carvers. Taking the earliest confirmed date of a carving by Laskaris as 1538, and the last as 1583, this gives us a span of forty-five years. Since young men would often enter a monastery, or take up an apprenticeship in their early teens, then we might propose the following chronology. If he went to Mount Athos at the age of fourteen and spent six years becoming an artist before returning to the secular world, then the forty-five year span would take him to the age of sixty-five. This is not unreasonable. Many of the crosses are unsigned and undated. The range of dates for those signed by George Laskaris is 15?6 (illegible), 1551, 1566 ( x2), 1567, 1569, 1581, 1583. To this list, Elbern has added 1538, 1542, 1546, 1549, 1554, 1580, 1580, as probably also carved by Laskaris, based on composition and content. When we consider the total of sixteen very similar crosses, and take into account many more items from the hands of this artist which have not survived or have not yet been identified, we have a substantial body of work. But this cannot be the only type of artistic creativity which he did. Speaking as a wood carver myself, I estimate that at the outside limit, each of these crosses could be completed within a space of three months if he worked on each one full time. With repetition and increased skill, this time could be reduced. However, we must also remember that he was working without electric light, and this type of work requires excellent lighting to execute. The time of year during Byzantine Art, 9th Exhibition of the Council of Europe, Athens 1964, cat. No. 131, not illustrated. This is probably the same cross, but the variation in reading of the date has not been noted by Elbern. 4

THE CARVER GEORGIOS LASKARIS

47

which adequate light was available is limited, so we can propose that during the darker seasons, when full sunlight was not available for long hours, he probably did another kind of work which did not require quite so much illumination, for example icon painting or larger scale wood carving. It is also possible that during those months, if he was a monk, he returned to his home monastery for spiritual renewal and to work in other media, as suggested. This we cannot know for certain. Unfortunately the entire set of dates given for this set of crosses is somewhat at odds with the dating of the page which forms the wrapping of the box, but this has been discussed earlier. However, the fact that the printed parchment wrapper almost certainly comes from Venice helps to locate the production of the cross to that city. While it could have been made elsewhere, it is more logical to consider the most obvious connection, i.e. Venice, rather than first looking to another location for which we have no evidence. Scrap parchment is not likely to have been moved from one city to another, especially when it could be used for other bindings in a city known for book publishing. Nor is the box, custom made for this object, likely to have been made a long distance from where the cross was carved. While the cross is a highly portable object, it seems most likely that the box for it would be made in the same place where it was acquired. If that is accepted, then we can add one more detail to our limited knowledge of the carver. He was probably part of the large Greek contingent of artists who were resident in Venice, a second generation after the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. Whether or not he was a monk cannot be established, but his consistent output of at least eight, and certainly many more of these devotional objects does suggest that he specialized in religious art and devotional aids. He may well have learned his skills in Mount Athos before moving, or returning, to Venice to work in the outside world. It is remarkable how similar the pieces attributed to him are stylistically. Without the inscribed date it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to establish a chronology simply by content or style. But there is further evidence of the Byzantine influence in this work A careful examination of the figures shows the lack of emotional content or implied motion in these images. In every panel, the figures stand still, and even where it would seem to be appropriate i.e. the Passion scenes on the base, there is little expression of grief or despair. This epitomizes a major difference between Western and Eastern art. While there are Byzantine frescoes of the twelfth to fourteenth centuries which display emotion, e.g. the wall paintings of the monastery of

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Studenica.5 in Byzantine art, three dimensional sculpture is almost nonexistent, and two dimensional sculpture is mostly confined to small scale objects, ivory plaques, gems, small wooden items such as crosses and eulogia. In all these cases, the story is given in a kind of visual shorthand. It is summarized into a short series of scenes, which the viewer is expected to recognize. The intention is not to give a full narrative, but rather to remind the viewer of a story which is already well known. Therefore the carver of this Malcove cross is not intent on giving multiple narrative scenes, nor emotional content. Unlike contemporary western wall paintings or large scale sculptures which show action and emotion, the Byzantine style is more static and condensed. But now I must contradict myself to point out that the Malcove cross, along with the other examples assembled in the Elbern article, is a combination of both Eastern and Western content and style. This is an obvious result of the fusion which resulted from the ongoing immigration of large numbers of Greeks, both artists and wealthy purchasers of art, to Venice after the fall of the Byzantine Empire to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. Similar cross cultural fusion is evident in the artistic production in Crete and Cyprus. In the case of the Malcove cross the object itself is Greek, but there are numerous Latin elements, such as the repeated image of the crucifixion on the cross bar, the Latin inscriptions, the detailed narrative of the Passion on the base, and the use of a northern Italian cityscape for the setting of the Passion events. Non western elements are the scene which is labeled Resurrectio but which is actually the Eastern Anastasis; the scene which is identified as The Communion of the Apostles is an eastern intrusion, and the interior scenes on the cross segment are eastern/Byzantine architecture. This artist has combined both worlds in a seamless synthesis which represents the culture in which he lived, namely northern Italy, and most likely Venice itself. The analysis of the component elements also confirms the milieu in which this artist was working. The Laskaris family name is first noted in the mid eleventh century in Thessaloniki. 6In the first half of the thirteenth century the famFor further bibliography on this site see The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. Vol. 3. P. 1969. 6 Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, p. 1180. 5

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ily dynasty ruled over the empire of Nicaea, with little evidence of cultural prowess. In the first half of the fifteenth century there is a musician and composer, John Laskaris, who was probably born in Constantinople, then moved to Crete where he opened a school of music. Thereafter, the family name is not prominent, although it still exists to the present. While we don=t know much about the artist, apart from his Greek background and his carving skill which was probably learned at a monastery on Mt. Athos, we can say with some likelihood that he lived and worked in the region of Venice. And the people who first purchased these crosses were probably also familiar with a mix of two cultures which by the period which we are discussing, had been developing for several decades and the exceptions which we have noted above would have been quite normal to them. To return to the recurring theme of theatre. I believe that this carver was influenced in his imagery by his own experiences of Italian theatre, and liturgical drama did have a revival in the 14th and 15th centuries in Byzantium. He saw an opportunity and adapted a form, i.e. the carved cross. Indeed the very form of these crosses is an adaptation. For liturgical benedictional purposes the small carved crosses were usually hand held, or had a mounting added in metal, complete with a handle. The group of crosses we are examining are all on a carved base and are therefore free standing without a metal mount, a departure from the normal Byzantine form. Laskaris and probably many others, transformed a traditional liturgical object into an object of personal piety which was attractive to both Orthodox and Latin believers. The artists thus created a greater market for items which would be purchased by individuals and not just the limited market of the church. In the discussion which follows, N. Newbigin and D.Pietropaulo offer their views on how these objects would appeal to the western mind.

‘UT POESIS SCULPTURA’: POETIC AND DRAMATIC SOURCES FOR THE MALCOVE CROSS? NERIDA NEWBIGIN My title has a question mark at the end. I shall begin this consideration of possible sources for the Malcove Cross by laying out some of my preconceptions. I am a text-based scholar. I look at a painting and I remember the story, where others will look and record shape and colour and pattern. This came home to me several years ago when I was comparing a fifteenth-century “desecration of the host” play with Paolo Uccello’s representation of the same story, now in Urbino. Art historian Barbara Wisch saw divergence of form and shape where I read convergence of story. Similarity and difference, parallels and sources are in the eye of the reader and beholder and have radically different modes of perception.1 We must be sceptical, however, of the proposition that there are “dramatic sources” for works of art.2 For more than twenty years, I have been reading Florentine sacre rappresentazioni and looking for paintThe play, La rappresentazione d’uno miracolo del Corpo di Cristo, was published in Florence in the last decade of the fifteenth century. The text is published in Nerida Newbigin, “Dieci sacre rappresentazioni del Quattro e Cinquecento,” Letteratura italiana antica 10 (2009): 21–397 (introduction and apparatus, 27–31; text, 74–97). 2 The play, La rappresentazione d’uno miracolo del Corpo di Cristo, was published in Florence in the last decade of the fifteenth century. The text is published in Nerida Newbigin, “Dieci sacre rappresentazioni del Quattro e Cinquecento,” Letteratura italiana antica 10 (2009): 21–397 (introduction and apparatus, 27–31; text, 74–97). 1

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ings that may derive from them, and the evidence is ambiguous. I see close connections between the image of Simon Magus in Benozzo Gozzoli’s panel from the Purification Altarpiece, and the 1477 play of St Peter and St Paul3 and between Bartolomeo della Gatta’s stories of St Julian Hospitaler, and the sequence of events enacted in the Florentine play of his life,4 but it may well be that the influence flows in the opposite direction: the Ascension and Pentecost plays of fifteenthcentury Florence take their “stage design” from fourteenth-century Pentecost iconography of the gate of Jerusalem surmounted by the “Upper Room,” and this more than anything else provides the earliest physical shape to the modern stage. I am cautious, then, as I follow Sheila Campbell’s discussion of the Malcove Cross and look at the narrative of the Passion in the lower section. We are looking at the base of a cross that is 31 cm in height altogether. The base (Pls. 8 and 9) is some 15 cm high, and the scenes themselves are about the size of a 35 mm slide. In the upper part of the Cross, as Sheila Campbell has shown, the scenes of the cross itself are almost all identified by inscriptions or easily identifiable. The base, in contrast has no inscriptions and presents problems, and the identifications discussed below are tentative. Like the panels of the Passion in Duccio’s Maestà (1308–1311), with which it shares Byzantine inspiration, some of the scenes of the front of the base are to be read boustrophedon, or as the ox ploughs, while others are read uniformly from top to bottom. We start, as John’s gospel does (12:4–12), with the Lavanda, the top centre scene (Pl. 62) in a sequence of three extra-wide scenes down the centre front of the base. We are in the upper room (the “upperness” is The Gozzoli panel is now in the Royal Collection at Hampton Court, London. The play, La rappresentazione di San Piero e di San Pagolo apostoli, in Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, MS C.35 Superiore, ff. 169r–187r, was copied by Giovanni d’Antonio Scarlatti between 1470 and 1473; now published in Newbigin, “Dieci sacre rappresentazioni,” 31–34, 98–131. 4 Of the four panels photographed for the Berenson Library at Villa I Tatti early last century, Florence, only two remain in the Pinacoteca of Castiglion Fiorentino; for the possibly related play see Nerida Newbigin, “Le Rappresentazioni di San Giuliano lo Spedaliere: La festa di San Giuliano,” Studi e problemi di critica testuale 31 (1985): 131–166. 3

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expressed by the balconies looking on), and Christ, who has removed his cloak, is washing the feet of the twelve. At the supper (Pl. 70), Christ foretells that one of his disciples will betray him, and identifies the traitor variously as the one whose finger is in the dish (Matthew 26:23; Mark 14:20), the one whose hand is on the table” (Luke 13:21–23) and the one to whom he will pass the sop of bread (John 21–30). There is no trace in our cross of John reclining in his embrace; rather it seems that Christ is passing the sop to Judas who will soon depart. The turrets and walls of Christ’s supper with the apostles are visible in the next scene on the lower register (Pl. 79). This is the largest scene on the front of the cross, and not immediately understandable. We have now come down from the Upper Room and Christ as Priest is giving communion to the apostles. The divine mandate of the Last Supper, the words “Do this in remembrance of me,” are usually the continuation of the meal, but here the offering of bread and wine seems to be at an altar and Christ has taken on a priestly role. Judas has already left because he, meanwhile, has gone to the house of the High Priest Caiaphas (Pl. 81), and made his offer to the Jews who are meeting in secret in the room below to discuss what is to be done about Jesus.5 Note the scenic elements of this house: it consists of a small square upstairs pavilion with a flat roof, and a second room beneath it. Steps lead up from it to another balcony. Meanwhile, back in that space of turrets and walls (Pl. 73), Christ is teaching the apostles, as related in chapters 14–17 of John’s gospel, a didactic part that is generally wellomitted from the plays.6 Judas is now absent; Christ and only eleven disciples are present. From there, we move to the upper register and the Garden of Gethsemane (Pl. 65). The scene is divided into two parts: in the lower part, Christ tells the apostles to pray lest they enter into temptation (Luke 22:40), and in the upper, he himself prays and is comforted by the angel (Luke 22:43). This is an alternative reading for this image. As is customary in Byzantine iconography, teaching has a heightened role in the iconography of the Malcove Cross: in the right side panel of the cruciform section, we find Christ teaching as a child among the elders, with the incription Christus docet ( Pl. 21) and Christ teaching the women, inscribed, XPS docet Marias (Pl. 22). 5 6

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Immediately to the right on the upper register (Pl. 66), we are still in the garden of Gethsemane. The apostles are surprised, still kneeling on the ground, but Christ is standing. Judas, at the left, has arrived with the men at arms provided by the Jews. That they are Jews and not Romans is indicated by the salamonic candles that they bear, in lieu of lanterns. In the lower left foreground, Malchus has fallen after Peter has severed his ear. In the scene below (Pl. 43), there is no longer a tree visible, but the two stylized spears and a lantern in the background (deriving directly from John 18:3) tell us it is the same scene. Judas steps forward to identify Christ with a kiss. There now follow eight scenes from the trial of Christ. Although it is almost impossible to make a firm identification of each scene, it would appear that there is one scene before Caiaphas, one before Herod, and six before Pilate. In the lower register (Pl. 53) Christ is taken by marching soldiers from Gethsemane immediately to the house of Caiaphas (Matt 26:57; Mark 14:53; Luke 22:54 says he went first to Caiaphas, John 18:13 says that he went first to Annas who sent him then to Caiaphas, 18:24), whom Judas has visited earlier to make his bargain with the Jews, in the scene just to the left of this one (Pl. 51). From here we move back to the upper section of the base, and our view then moves 90º to the left (Pl. 38), where we see Christ being greeted with evident warmth, probably by Herod, while soldiers wait impatiently in the courtyard. In the scene below (Pl. 44), Christ is then interrogated by Pilate, as the soldiers wait impatiently in the courtyard. Here, as in Plate 51, there is a figure on the stairs, possibly Peter, who is apparently challenged by the soldiers in the courtyard. On Pilate’s orders, Christ is scourged and mocked. The sad tilt of Christ’s head (Pl. 53) identifies the next scene below as the Ecce Homo (John 19:5). Christ has been given a crown and seated on a throne; one of the soldiers pats a dog. From there, we move right: in the largest scene on the back (Pl. 54), in the upper section Pilate orders that Christ be scourged at the column (John 19:1) while in the lower section the punishment is carried out as the guards cast lots for Christ’s robe. In the scene above (Pl. 47), which owes more to Matthew 27:15–26) and to Mark (15:11–20), Pilate wishes to release Christ, but the Jews come to him and with the mob in the courtyard they demand the release of Barabbas, the heavily bearded man on the stairs at the right. We are now top centre on the back of the cross, an extra-wide scene like the front centre (Pl. 38), in the palace of the governor Pontius Pilate. Christ stands before the seated Roman governor who again interrogates him.

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Barabbas’s prison cell is visible on the right. Christ appears again in the lower register, before the guards who will mock him. Pilate now takes his place in the judgement seat (John 19:13) and orders that Christ should die (Pl. 41). The soldiers again wait in the lower part of the scene. Christ now leaves the city for Calvary (Pl. 49), bearing his own cross. Behind him are the lances and the banners of the soldiers who accompany him. The scene below this (Pl. 57), however, presents extraordinary problems. This scene outside the walls must be the scene of the crucifixion, that is, the nailing of Christ to the cross. He would have been surrounded by soldiers with their lances, and in fact the one just to the left of centre holds a hammer to drive in the nails, yet as Sheila Campbell has pointed out, the figure of Christ appears to have been broken off from the middle at some early stage, and the figures which would have been behind him have subsequently been carved in full. The one draped figure to the left is probably Mary. This is the point at which the scenes of the upper part of the cross take over the story: Christ raised on the cross, the deposition, the entombment, the descent into Hell. The base picks up the narrative thread again as we move to the right and the upper register to find the Roman soldiers who fall asleep as they guard the tomb (Pl. 58). The next two scenes reflect the different gospel accounts of the visit of the women to the tomb. According to Mark 16:1–8, in the morning three women came: Mary Magdalene, Mary mother of James, and Maria Salome, with spices, and found an angel at the open tomb (Pl. 67); while Luke 24:1–11 tells of the Maries and certain other women who came with spices, and found two angels in shining garments, and the tomb empty (Pl. 75). The women continue to be the focus of the last three scenes. At the top (Pl. 61), Mary Magdalene is the first to see him alive, even though many medieval authors found it unthinkable that Christ should appear first to a reformed prostitute, rather than to his mother or to Peter, and rewrote the story to correct this mistake. Christ here shrinks away from her as she is about to touch him. In the middle (Pl. 69), the women hasten to tell the disciples that the tomb is empty; and finally (Pl. 77) Peter, in the foreground, comes to the tomb with the other disciples, to see for himself. The scenes of the base of the Malcove Cross tell a story, but I now want to examine the proposition that they are related to a dramatic performance or to performance practice. Sheila Campbell has dated the cross to about 1550 and attributed it to Giorgios Laskaris, a sculptor of Greek origin, immersed in the traditions of Byzantium, working tin-

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northern Italy. We must therefore look at both Byzantine and Italian traditions to understand this work. And since printed books were already circulating throughout Italy by the end of the fifteenth century, it is not necessary to limit our discussion just to the north. By the late fifteenth-century, two texts, apart from the gospel narratives, dominate the imagining of the Passion in Italy. The first is the Meditations on the Life of Christ, the work of an Italian Franciscan in early fourteenth-century Italy.7 Like much Franciscan preaching, the Meditations use words to create pictures in the mind of the reader or listener. Every sentence is an instruction: look, imagine, meditate on the purity of the Virgin, the Passion of Christ. The Meditations traced the outline and the detail of the vast majority of Italian representations of the Passion for the next two centuries. A number of elements in our cross are found also in the Meditations: the two ladders at the crucifixion, that Sheila Campbell has discussed; and the prison underneath the house of Caiaphas, where the soldiers guard Christ on Thursday night. But despite the presence of no fewer than five scenes in which the women are active participants, the Malcove Cross makes no attempt to foreground the Virgin in the way the Meditations do, and the artist cannot be said to be following this particular devotional work. The second ubiquitous model is a cantare, now attributed to a Sienese poet, Niccolò Cicerchia, but usually unattributed in the many dozens of manuscript miscellanies that contain it. The cantare of the Passione di Cristo was composed towards the end of the fourteenth century. Beginning “O increata maestà di Dio,” it narrates the Passion of Christ in 282 8-line stanzas.8 Even before plays of the Passion reappeared toMeditations on the Life of Christ, trans. Isa Ragusa and Rosalie B. Green (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1961). The Meditations were widely known in Italy into the sixteenth century, and much drawn on in Franciscan and Dominican preaching; see Carlo Delcorno, “The Language of Preachers: Between Latin and Vernacular,” The Italianist 15 (1995): 48–66. 8 See Giorgio Varanini, “Alcune osservazioni su due scritti dedicati ai Cantari religiosi senesi del Trecento,” reprinted in his collected essays, Lingua e letteratura italiana dei primi secoli, ed. Luigi Banfi and others (Pisa: Giardini 1994), II, 512– 513. The source is the gospels, and where there is a lack of harmony between the gospels, then John is preferred. The text is edited in Cantari religiosi senesi del Trecento, ed. Giorgio Varanini (Bari: Laterza, 1965), 307–379; on the dating and 7

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wards the end of the fifteenth century, it was the custom of confraternities to sing “le stanze della Passione” as part of their Easter devotions, and other versions were composed,9 but there is no particular link between the scenes of the Malcove Cross and the way in which the various Passion cantari develop the sequence of scenes. The distinguished philologist Giorgio Varanini proposed on several occasions that Cicerchia based his poem on the panels of Duccio’s glorious Maestà, but close examination reveals that the order of events and the details are quite different. The points of contact, however, with the Maestà remind us of the persistence of Byzantine ways of seeing and experiencing the presence of Christ, not only in early fourteenthcentury Siena, but even in post-Tridentine Italy. Both the Meditations and the Maestà are intended to bring the worshipper contact with the divine. The Meditations do it by instructing the reader/listener to look, imagine and see what the Virgin saw, by stimulating the emotions and creating sensations. The Maestà, in the tradition of Byzantine art, neutralizes that carnal and emotional element, framing it in a succession architectural scenes that carry the story along. If the scenes of the Malcove Cross do not depend directly on either of the best known non-dramatic sources, is there any link to the known plays? The dramatic representation of the Passion of Christ is discontinuous and heterogeneous in Italy. The gospels and the Liber Responsorialis provided the basis of liturgical drama in Latin from the tenth century through to the sixteenth. The Latin sequenza or hymn, when crossed with the vernacular ballad, produced the verse form of the lauda that became enormously successful in the thirteenth century (we think of Jacopone’s proto-drama of the Passion, “Donna de paradiso”10), and then became the basis of the laude drammatica in Umbria in the fourteenth century.11 The Umbrian plays, or devozioni, were perattribution, see Pio Raina, “Il Cantare dei Cantari,” Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie 2 (1878): 220–254, 419–431, esp. 227. 9 Blake Wilson, Music and Merchants: The Laudesi Companies of Republican Florence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 66–70. 10 Iacopone da Todi, Laude, ed. Franco Mancini (Bari: Laterza, 1974), pp. 201–206. 11 Vincenzo De Bartholomaeis, Le origini della poesia drammatica (1924; second edition, Turin: SEI, 1952); and Laude drammatiche e rappresentazioni sacre, ed.

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formed by lay confraternities from the first half of the fourteenth century, when we find the first inventories of veils, cloaks, beards, wigs, angels’ wings and devils masks.12 By the end of the century, the plays had been gathered into substantial anthologies called Laudari, containing hymns, both lyric and dramatic, to be sung or performed in some way throughout the church year. Some are very short: the hymns for each day of Lent are simply a versification of the gospel account of the ministry of Christ. Others are much longer, like the complex dramatizations of the events from Palm Sunday to the Resurrection. The structure of the Perugian laudari is repeated elsewhere in Umbria, the Tiber valley: they remained a living tradition in the Abruzzi well into the sixteenth century. There is very little evidence, however, of where such plays — or dramatic dialogues — were performed, and how sets were prepared. We have an exceptional description that shows how the main square of Perugia became the set of a play of the crucifixion in 1448: Christ, already carrying the cross, came out of the main door of the cathedral, circled the square, returned to the door of the cathedral to emerge again on the terrace next to it. The official balcony of the Priors, which looks to us like an ideal stage for Herod and Pilate, was probably occupied by dignitaries.13 Vincenzo De Bartholomaeis, 3 vols (1943; reprinted Florence: Le Monnier, 1967), I, pp. 29–312. 12 Ernesto Monaci, “Appunti per la storia del teatro italiano,” Rivista di filologia romanza, I (1874): 257–261. 13 “On 29 March [1448] which was Good Friday, Friar Ruberto [da Lecce] began preaching in the square again every day, and on Maundy Thursday he preached about the Eucharist, and invited the whole populace for Good Friday: and at the end of his sermon on the Passion he did this Representation: that is, he preached at the end of the piazza outside the door of the cathedral of San Lorenzo, where there was a terrace from the door right to the corner towards the house of Cherubino degli Armanne; and there, when it was time to show the Crucifix, out of the door of San Lorenzo, came Eliseo di Cristofano, a barber from Porta Sant’Angelo, as Christ, without any clothes, with the cross on his shoulder, the crown of thorns on his head, and with his flesh that appeared beaten and scourged, as when Christ was buffeted; and there he was led to be crucified by several groups of armed men; and they went down to-

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By 1450, Holy Week plays were being performed in Rome, and were among the attractions for the Holy Year pilgrims, drawn to the eternal city by pious devotion and the promise of plenary indulgences. Holy Week was ever the time when men turned their hearts to the New Jerusalem, and the pilgrim who came ahead in Lent to prepare himself, wards the fountain around the people and as far as the corner of the Scudellari, and they went up to the public balcony of the [Collegio del] Cambio, and and they went in the dorway of San Lorenzo and and came out onto the terrace; and there, in the middle of the terrace, there came up to him a woman dressed as the Virgin Mary, all in black, weeping and relating heart-rendingly what happens in such a mistery of the Passion of Jesus Christ; and when they had arrived at Friar Robert’s pulpit, [Jesus] stood a while with the cross on his shoulder, and all the while the people wept and shouted Mercy; and then they put down the cross, and laid on it [the dummy of] a crucified person that was there before, and they set the cross uppright; and then the cries of the people were much greater; and at the foot of the cross, Our Lady began her lament together with St John and Mary Magdalene and Maria Salome, who said some of the stanzas of the lament of the Passion. And then came Nicodemus and Josef of Arimathie, and they unnailed the body of Jesus Christ, which they put on the lap of Our Lady, and then they put him in the tomb; and all the while the people wept out loud. And many said that there had never been done in Perugia a more beautiful and more devout devozione than this; and that morning six people became friars: one was called Eliseo, who was a young fool; Tomasso de Marchegino Bino, who worked for the Priors, the son of Bocco from the Borgo di Sant’Antonio; and messer Riciere de Francescone de Tanolo, and many others had taken the cloth before on account of the sermons of Friar Ruberto. And within three or four months, Friar Eliseo di Cristofano from Porta Sant’Angelo left the friarhood and resumed the barber’s trade and guild, and he is called Domenedio (‘Lord God”) and then he married and became a bigger scoundrel than he was before;” translated from Cronaca della città di Perugia dal 1309 al 1491 nota col nome di Diario del Graziani, in Cronache e storie inedite della città di Perugia dal MCL al MDLXIII seguite da inediti documenti, ed. Francesco Bonaini and others, in Archivio storico italiano, 16 (1850–1851), 69–750 (598–599); the extract is reproduced in Alessandro D'Ancona, Origini del teatro italiano, 2nd ed. (Turin: Loescher, 1891), I, 280–281. See also Mara Nerbano, “Play and Record: Ser Tommaso di Silvestro and the Theatre of Medieval and Early Modern Orvieto,” European Medieval Drama 7 (2004): 127–171, esp. 128.

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by following his guidebook’s instructions and visiting a station church for each of the forty days of Lent, earned himself plenary indulgence. On Good Friday 1450, the English pilgrim John Capgrave visited the basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme and touched the holy relics of the True Cross, the Good Thief’s cross and the nails, and the very soil of Jerusalem. Outside the gates of the basilica, Capgrave saw “iii crosses on whech the passioun of our lord is ensaumpled on good fryday with mech othir circumstauns.”14 The performers of this devozione were the members of the confraternity of the Gonfalone, a major Marian confraternity that also performed its play of the Resurrection at San GiovanniLaterano on Easter Saturday.15 In 1490 the Gonfalone moved its plays to the Colosseum and used elevated areas at the eastern end as performance space. Here for the first time we find records of scenery and staging for plays on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.16 The accounts for 1490 record payments to a carpenter who “made the temple” — presumably the temple of Jerusalem — “and other things for the last devozione, and took down the Castle of Nazareth and took down the temple.”17 In the inventory of 1498, we find: John Capgrave, Ye Solace of Pilgrimes: A Description of Rome, circa A. D. 1450, ed. C. A. Mills (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1911), 79. 15 Nerida Newbigin, “The Decorum of the Passion: The Gonfalone Plays in the Colosseum, 1490 to 1539,” in Confraternities and the Visual Arts in the Italian Renaissance: Ritual, Spectacle, Image, ed. Barbara Wisch and Diane Cole Ahl (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 173–202; and with Barbara Wisch, Acting on Faith: The Confraternity of the Gonfalone in Renaissance Rome (St Louis: St. Joseph’s University Press, forthcoming 2012). 16 The Roman plays, rewritten by a Florentine, Giuliano Dati, and rushed into print in 1496 with numerous woodcut illustrations, circulated throughout Italy and gave the impression — even as the performances changed from year to year — that the form and content of the Colosseum Passion was immutable. My edition with English translation of the three plays as they were printed in the 1490s, La resuscitazione di Lazzaro, La Passione di Christo, and La Resurrezione, is published on-line at http://user-web-pro–1.ucc.usyd.edu.au/ ~nnew4107/ Texts/The_Gonfalone_in_Renaissance_Rome. 17 “To Master Pietro de Stefano from Firenze, carpenter, 36 karolini de papa, in cash by order of the committee, for five days of his labour at 3 karo14

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Pilate’s court with four round columns at the front and four square half-columns at the back, with a canopy and frame and all its other furnishings And another court on four little round columns for Herod.18

The “pavilion” style stage, such as we see in the Malcove Cross, was an ongoing feature of the Passion plays in fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century Rome. Before moving on from the scenic conventions of these plays, I wish to make one more observation. Good Friday sermons were the culmination of Lenten preaching, and I believe that if we looked hard we would find evidence through Italy and throughout the fifteenth century of public sermons that culminate then in the performance of the Passion, and the frequent use of the term devozione rather than rappresentazione suggests that the devotional element was paramount.19 Many of the Passion plays were also performed with musical settings in ducal palaces and by royal choirs. Every monastery and convent, every lay confraternity had Last Supper rituals, where the members ate together, washed one another’s feet, and renewed the covenant with the lord. One of the principal functions of the Malcove Cross is, I believe, to focus meditations on this sequence of events. lini a day, and for ten days’ labour of two of his workers, at 2 karolini each, and for one day’s labour of his labourer at one karolino a day, when they worked at the Colosseum building the temple and other things for the last devozione, and for taking down the Castle of Nazareth [lapsus for Bethany?], and taking down the temple, as agreed in all 3 ducats and 5 bolognini (6 June 1490),” translated from Marco Vattasso, Per la storia del dramma sacro in Italia (Roma: Tipografia Vaticana, 1903), 75. 18 “Lo tribunale de Pilato con quattro colonne tonde davanti e quattro meze quatre derieto, con cielo, cornice et tutti altri soi fornimenti; Item un altro tribunale sopra quattro colonnette tonde per Herode,” translated from Vattasso, 101. 19 See D’Ancona, I, 185n; for Ferrara, 1481, see Anna Maria Coppo, “Spettacoli alla corte di Ercole I,” in Contributi dell’Istituto di Filologia Moderna, Serie Storia del Teatro I (Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 1968), 30–59; for the 1484 performance associated with the surviving text of the Revello Passione, see Marco Piccat, Rappresentazioni popolari e feste in Revello nella metà del XV secolo (Turin: Centro Studi Piemontesi, 1986).

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So let me look now at the question of scenic conventions and their relationship to the “theatricality” of the scenes of the Malcove Cross. There is no doubt that the scenes of the cross look theatrical. Each scene is framed and the action within it is elevated to the upper half of the frame. It seems to take place on a stage, above the headheight of the crowds who are below and in front of the stage. The artist seems to move around the “stage” to view first from one side and then from the other, but he is not in fact working from a single model, and there are inconsistencies: stairs and balconies are not the same from frame to frame. Rather he is using a series of conventions that have much in common with the Byzantine iconography of earlier narrative altarpieces (for example Duccio di Buoninsegna and Ambrogio Lorenzetti) or of major mosaic and fresco cycles. The changes are not necessarily significant in themselves; rather they are markers of time passing within the same setting, achieving visual variety and avoiding monotony.”20 The city of Jerusalem is represented by its gate, walls and turrets, gardens by a single tree; palaces in Jerusalem are represented by raised, open rooms; internal steps are placed on the outside of buildings. To get as much as possible into each scene, there is an upstairs and a downstairs: or sometimes, as in the vigil in the Garden of Gethsemane, there are two moments. It is now more than sixty years since George Kernodle examined form and convention in the Renaissance theatre. Kernodle addressed the way in which artists represented the interior scene: using an image from a tenth- or eleventh-century manuscript of Prudentius’s Psychomachia, he showed how the “arcade screen” came to stand for the whole castle-city. When the artist wanted to represent an interior scene, he simply brought it and the characters to the front. The simplest “subterfuge form,” he said, of representing the interior scene was “to place the characters under the roof of an open type centre pavilion or side house. Sometimes the house was opened up by arches almost as large as the whole walls; but more frequently in earlier art it was no more than a baldachino or roof and columns.”21 Long before we find the I thank our anonymous reader for focussing these observations. George R. Kernodle, From Art to Theater: Form and Convention in the Renaissance (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1944), Chapter 1: The Beginning of Scenic Background, 14–51, esp. 25. 20 21

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“tribunal of Herod” being represented by four columns and a canopy, we find the same conventions in art, and it is clear that the drama is simply adopting conventions already established in painting. Even the staircases, which frame so many of the images so suggestively, are already there in earlier pictures. I propose instead a reading of the Malcove Cross in the light of Michael Baxandall’s discussion of the painter as a “professional visualizer of holy stories.” Baxandall explains: The public mind was not a blank tablet on which the painters’ representations of a story or person could impress themselves; it was an active institution of interior visualization with which every painter had to get along. In this respect the fifteenth-century experience of a painting was not the painting we see now so much as a marriage between the painting and the beholder’s previous visualizing activity on the same matter.22

To show what kind of activity this “visualizing” might be, Baxandall quotes from an anonymous treatise, entitled The Garden of Prayer, printed in Venice in 1494. The treatise draws demonstrably on the traditions of the ars memoria, which runs in an unbroken line from Cicero through Dominican preaching manuals to Giordano Bruno’s “theatre of memory.” It “explains the need for internal representations and their place in the process of prayer” as follows: So that you can better imprint the story in your mind, and so that you can commit every act of it more easily to memory, it will be useful and necessary for you to fix in your mind places and people. For a city, which will be the city of Jerusalem, you can take a city that you know well. In this city you find the principal places in which all the acts of the Passion were executed: for instance a palace in which will be the Upper Room where Christ supped with his disciples. And there will be the house of Annas and the house of Caiaphas where Our lord Jesus was led in the night. And the room where he was led before Caiaphas and derided and mocked. And the court of Pilate where he spoke to him with the Jews, and in this

Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 45. 22

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A 16TH CENTURY ITALO-BYZANTINE CROSS the room where our Lord Jesus was tied to the column. And the place of Mount Calvary where he was placed on the cross.... And it is also necessary that you form in your mind some people that you deal with and know, each of whom represents one of the principal characters in the Passion: like the character of Lord Jesus, of Our Lady, of St Peter, St John the Evangelist, St Mary Magdalene, Annas, Caiaphas, Pilate and Judas and the like. And you will form them all in your mind. So then, when you have formed all these things in your mind, so that you can focus your imagination on them, you will enter your cell and there, alone and solitary, excluding all other external thoughts, you will begin to think on the very principle and foundation of this Passion. You will begin with how Lord Jesus came to Jerusalem on the ass. And lovingly you will think right through every action, dwelling on every action and step, and if you feel any devotion in any step, then stop there, and go no further while that sweetness and devotion last.23

Now let me draw these threads together. Meditation on the Passion of Christ brought the faithful sinner into the presence of Christ through the construction in his or her mind of a stage with actors. The Malcove Cross is not, I believe, so much the record of a play as the reconstruction of the life of Christ in terms of a play, in order to provide a theatre of memory for the devout Christian who owned and used it. I propose that this Cross, with its remarkable box, was conceived as a travelling cross, to be taken on journeys and used as part of daily meditations and devotions, and in particular the daily reading from the Book of Hours. Given the foregrounding of women in the last five scenes, quite unusual in the Italian context, its intended user may have been a woman, educated in a devotional and rhetorical tradition, possibly Dominican, where the theatre of memory was still part of intellectual life.

Translated from Zardino de Oration (Venice, 1494), x.ii verso — x.iii recto (Cap. XVI. Chome meditare la vita di Christo), cited by Baxandall, 163–4; Baxandall’s own translation is on 46. 23

THE MALCOVE CROSS AND THE PERFORMANCE OF FAITH DOMENICO PIETROPAOLO Art is “a calculated trap for meditation,” wrote a distinguished author.1 I know of no definition more appropriate for the Malcove Cross, which was conceived for the purpose of inducing meditation on its scenes and reflection on the images that they recall by iconic association. The cross was designed to invite the eye to search lingeringly the details of its inner surface, part of which is deliberately concealed to stationary view by framing elements in the foreground. It was strategically designed to cause the mind of the person contemplating it to search simultaneously inward for liberating knowledge that may lie quietly hidden in unfocused memories. For an observer impelled by a longing for divine saturation, aesthetic entrapment without is the condition for fulfilment within. My purpose in this paper is to examine the nature and manner of the entrapment, not in relation to the Byzantine background of the carver but in the context of a Western patron familiar with the Christian performance tradition inherited from the late Middle Ages. It is incumbent upon me to clarify at the outset the key terms in the title of my paper, since in the course of my argument they may otherwise suggest an undisciplined use of language. These are the noun performance and the proposition of. Normally circumscribed to the activity of the performing arts, performance generally denotes a material realization of the objective vocabulary of the art in question before, and for, an audience. Here we mean to expand the semantic breadth of the term Denis de Rougemont, “Religion and the Mission of the Artist,” in The new Orpheus: Essays Toward a Christian Poetic, ed. Nathan A. Scott, Jr. (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1964), p. 63. 1

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to cover the liturgy and related celebrations of piety, including cases in which their performance has an audience of one, and even when that one is not visible to man. This expansion of the term is entirely appropriate for the period of interest to us, when the performing arts were still in the process of emerging from the liturgy, and when the celebration of the mass, the chief moment of worship, was in a process of increasing privatization, to the point of dispensing almost entirely with the presence of a community of faith. This larger sense of performance and, by implication, of the performance tradition of the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, represents the empirical and conceptual boundary around my argument. As for the preposition of, which here suggests an objective as well as a subjective genitive, the ambivalence of the relationship between the terms that it joins is by design and is meant to bring into our purview situations in which faith is both the substance and the agent of performance. According to Francastel art and drama are parallel expressions of the same ethos and therefore cannot be understood in isolation from each other or from other contemporary modes of expression, including feasts.21This is a wise attitude to assume in the tiresome debate on the direction of influence between the two arts, not only, and not so much, because drama and art express the same spiritual condition, but also and chiefly because, strictly speaking, history can be conceived only in the singular. In order to achieve conceptual focus and formal clarity, historiography rightly compartmentalizes the flux of social reality into a series of adjacent narratives, such as the history of art, the history of drama, and the history of liturgy. But when we are faced with such interdisciplinary issues as are raised by the Malcove cross, we would do well to remind ourselves that the different aspects of reality so historicized are not actually endowed with autonomous life and that, in the apprehending consciousness of living observers and practitioners, the ways in which these arts are expressed may themselves lack the conceptual discreteness that historiography may induce us to attribute to them. The interpenetration of cultural activities in the dynamics of community life is an empirical fact of history due to the unity of reality.

Pierre Francastel, Guardare il Teatro, ed. Fabrizio Cruciani (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1987). 2

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Though it is valid for all spheres of human activity, this proposition is especially clear to historians of performance, since their field of research is so large as to cut across various spheres of religious, social, and cultural life, including drama, liturgy, and art, to name only the ones relevant to the purpose and scope of this paper. It could be objected, of course, that literary historians of the drama, theological historians of the liturgy, and technical historians of sculpture may not be as comfortable with the common grouping, given the risk implicit in it that the factual basis of one field may be wrongly perceived as a metaphor of the other. However, such an objection would carry little weight with current scholarship and would in any case be relatively easy to refute. Theology has shown little hesitation in accepting the proposition that liturgy may be beneficially regarded as a form of play, while religious drama and art are of necessity conscious of their adjacency to the performative aspects of theology and of their roots in the claim that Scripture has on them in the present. Frequently solemn performance events are consciously based on collaborative efforts on a grand scale. For an interesting contemporary illustration from the perspective of the Church, we may recall that, in his detailed account of the Corpus Christi celebration of 1462 in Viterbo, Pius II describes a multi-medial procession, complete with paintings, tapestries, actors, and theatrical sound effects, as well as cardinals, sundry officials, and his own celebration of Vespers. Caught in a single purview, the performance text of this heterogeneous event appears to be simultaneously grounded in art, theatre, and liturgy.32 Given the ephemeral nature of performance texts, scholarship can have no contact with them other than by way of production plans, where these exist, and of contemporary descriptions and testimonials. Such documents can provide us with reasonable certainty regarding the final configuration of the production, and, if they are detailed enough, can serve as a point of departure for an imaginative reconstruction of the performance text and an outline of the script on which the perA generous selection from the passage may be read in English translation in Italian Art: 1400–1500, edited by Creighton E.Gilbert ( Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1992) pp. 213–215. The great processions of St. John in Florence around 1430 included 22 skits performed by actors at designated stations. See Francastel, p. 69. 3

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formance was based, following the familiar dramaturgical technique of reading a play backwards as well as forwards. The script and production plan of the Corpus Christi celebration described by Pius must have called for a display of appropriate works of art on the altar itself and for an actor to play the role of St. Thomas Aquinas dispensing the Eucharist. Admittedly, this is the fruit of conjecture, but if the document is truthful the inference is acceptable. On occasion, however, we can verify in the script itself the presence of thought forms imported by the dramatist from another area of activity at the compositional level. In Ludus Coventriae the Doctor makes the following statement concerning the definition of his role in the action: To [the] pepyl not lernyd—I stonde as A techer Of [this] processyon—to [give] informacion And to them [that] be lernyd—As a gostly precher That in my rehersail—they may haue delectation.43

the creative level of the artist’s consciousness, and, by implication, at the experiential level of the community’s apprehension of the performance text within which inter-artistic crossovers achieve aesthetic materiality, such traces as the words processyion and preacher suggest that the liturgical, the dramatic, and the artistic are not mechanical accretions of each other but forms of reciprocal enrichment at the most fundamental level of the creative activity. But what if such traces are nowhere to be found? Can the lack of evidence of conceptual cross-fertilization be regarded as evidence of absence of contact? The answer is obviously no. The question is significant only in so far as it induces us to sort out our observations in a useful manner. To begin with, some aspects of the texts, celebrations, and art objects cannot be satisfactorily explained other than by reference to the performance art, of whose creative contribution they figure as positive traces. In such cases the proof of inter-artistic dependence is little more than an exercise in careful reading or observation. Other aspects, however, can be explained with or without such references, though the asLudus Coventriae, ed. K.S. Block, early English Text Society, e.s. 120 (1922), 269. For the Horatian character of the goal of art underlying this statement, see Marvin Carlson, Theories of the Theatre (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1993), p. 36. 4

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sumption of contact and influence can generally make the explanation more plausible. In such cases, artistic interdependence is not susceptible of proof, remaining ultimately a question of probability rather than certainty. Finally there are aspects that can be explained in an entirely satisfactory way without our summoning forth of the thought forms of the other arts, whose recollection may introduce obscurity rather than clarity. Moreover, when we look at all types of evidence from a perspective rooted in the performance tradition, it is convenient to consider them in terms of their perception and intentionality, in so far as these are governed by the art work itself. The first term, of course, does not require any commentary, but the precise meaning of the second, intentionality, may not be as clear. It refers to the ontological aspect of the object that projects itself into the mind of its observer, wherein it calls forth images, awakens memories, and generates inferences. More precisely the intentionality of an object is its esse intentionale, the being that it has as an object of consciousness in the mind of its observer. In the case at hand, the observer is a Western patron approaching the cross as an aid to meditation. Equipped with these considerations, we turn first of all to the labels identifying the scenes carved on the cross itself. Here we find several that, in relation to a Western patron, cannot be easily explained without reference to a liturgical performance of the event described in the corresponding gospel narrative. The labels Nativitas, Purgatio, Palmarum celebratio, Resurectio, and Ascensio are not the names of textual narratives but of the feast days in which the same narratives were commemorated in liturgical celebration. Though in the Byzantine tradition of the artist identifying such labels are a common occurrence, in the Western context of the use of the cross in meditation the liturgical recollection must be assumed as automatic. The earliest recorded occurrences of the vernacular equivalents of most of these words does not allow any doubt on the matter. Their general use as labels of motifs in the Western iconographic tradition is decidedly later, in some cases by at least two centuries, and so is irrelevant to the issue at hand. Their specific use as labels for scriptural passages is either contemporary or later, but that does not constitute a problem, since it could hardly be expected that the gospel episodes should be called by different names from the liturgical celebrations in which they were recollected. In any case, the fact remains that virtually all practicing Christians, including highly educated artists and patrons, first come into contact with the Gospel narratives by way of religious services and their setting. This is

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more so in an age still so steeped in orality that one generally “reads” by listening to a communal performance of the text and by interpreting its visual context. Moreover, as an experience in imagination and understanding, recollection involves two things at every stage of its development: an event hic et nunc with which we come into direct contact, and an event elsewhere in time and space to which the mind is sent by the one before it now. In all commemorative services, it is the service and not the memory that sets our mind in motion. It may be useful to examine in greater detail a couple of examples, beginning with the one that, in all likelihood, was most relevant to the patron of the Malcove Cross, who, as Nerida Newbiggin suggests, was probably a woman: the Purgatio (Pl. 18). Now generally known either as Candlemas or as the Presentation in the Temple, Purgatio designated the celebration that took place on February 2, the day that marks the end of the Christmas season in the liturgical calendar. The scriptural base of the celebration was Luke’s description of how Mary, forty days after giving birth to Jesus, went to the temple to perform the prescribed sacrifice and to present her son to God. There the aged Symeon, blessed with the Holy Spirit, received the baby and thanked God for having enabled his eyes to behold his instrument of salvation, “quia viderunt oculi mei salutare tuum” (Luke 2:30). The passage ends with a reference to the turmoil with which salvation will be achieved, for all thoughts concealed in the hearts of the wicked will be made manifest, and Mary’s own soul will be pierced by unspeakable pain, as if by a sword: “et tuam ipsius animam pertransibit gladius ut revelentur ex multis cordibus cogitationes” (Luke 2: 35). The word purgatio was used to designate the feast in which the event described was understood chiefly as the purification of Mary rather than as the presentation of the Lord. February 2 was a penitential feast especially relevant to women. Since the reign of Pope Sergius (687–701), the celebration included a spectacular procession, with a multitude of lighted candles, symbolizing at once our pilgrimage on earth and the light of revelation. It is clear that for a Western patron the intentionality with which the Malcove Cross was invested, that is to say the signifying and imagegenerating function that it could exercise in the observer’s consciousness, was not that of the gospel narrative but that of a liturgical performance in which the patron is certain to have participated, perhaps on a regular basis. The gospel account comes at a later stage, when the intentionality thus interiorised sets the mind in pursuit of selective recollection. In the process of recollection, the image carved on the cross

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sends the mind of the penitent to a communal celebration of the purification of Mary, which in turn functions as the spiritus movens of the contemplative act itself. By turning to the past under its propulsion, the mind retrieves the gospel story from memory, as the past dimension of the liturgical performance brought to mind by the cross. By turning to the future it reaches forth to a Marian model of humanity — indeed, if the patron is really a woman, to a Marian model of womanhood—as an ideal of personal attainment. Perception, memory and anticipation are the three (Augustinian) dimensions of the present. Contemplation is realized as a movement of the mind in search of clarity and fullness in all three directions. However it is only when it moves outward along the dimension of the present that clarity of purpose and fullness of being may be achieved. For there, in the world of liturgical celebration, it first encounters a community of worshippers engaged, either as participants or as spectators, in a redemptive act that transforms them all into the mystical body of Christ. Among these the contemplative mind may then single out as voices of solidarity those chanting the contemporary hymn Stabat Mater, and, upon hearing how Mary stood by the cross, “cujius animam gementem/ contristatam et dolentem/ pertransivit glaudius”, it may well yield to the affective impulse to fill itself with the spirit of Mary, before this miniature cross carved with the feast of her purification and the promise of her sorrow. As an aid to redemptive contemplation, the purpose of the cross—and it is a cross, not a sculpture representing a cross or a picture containing an image of a cross—is not to impart textual knowledge but to infuse the observer with the reenacting spirit of salvation by way of the imaginative, intellectual, and emotional expansion of the initial object of consciousness, to the point of annihilating all awareness of distinction between cogito and cogitatum. The Second example to which I wish to call attention is the scene depicting the triumphal entry of Jesus in Jerusalem (Pl. 19). As we might have expected, the scene carved on the Malcove cross shows two crowds, one in front and one behind Jesus, who is sitting on a donkey and is directed towards the city gates. The elements of the scene come directly from the gospel, but in Western context of its reception the words by which the scene is identified, Palmarum celebratio, would have brought to mind contemporary celebrations of Palm Sunday. The patron of the Malcove cross no doubt had direct experience of such celebrations as a participant and could thus approach the cross with a multitude of images and symbols ready to be awakened in her consciousness. Ever since it was introduced to the West in the early Middle Ages,

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the celebration of Palm Sunday became an increasingly spectacular and dramatic performance. Although there were local variations, it generally included a procession in which palms and a cross were carried from one church to another and back, the blessing of the palms and their distribution to the people, the separation of the processional participants into two groups, one representing the crowd that walked with Jesus into the city and the other the crowd that came out to meet him, and a dramatic antiphonal exchange between the two groups. In the Toledo version, the archbishop leading the procession knocked with his staff three times on the west door of the cathedral and engaged in dialogue with two canons on the other side, exchanging with them lines taken from Psalm 24, before the door was opened for the procession to enter, carrying in the cross. The archbishop would say: Tollite portas, principes, vestras, et elevamini, portae aeternales, et introibit rex gloriae.

To which the canons answered: Quis est rex gloriae?

And the archbishop responded: Dominus virtutum ipse est rex gloriae.4

In the Aquileia version the cross was placed on a carpet in front of the altar, while the priest solemnly intoned “O Crux, ave, spes unica.”5 We are not yet in the world of mystery plays, but we are not far from it either. The dialogue Tollite portas performed at the door of the cathedral was repeated in more dramatic fashion on other occasions, such as the consecration of churches, the ritual of Elevatio performed on Easter morning, when Tollite portas was at times combined with the familiar Quem quaeritis trope.65In all these cases, the little drama signified redemption from evil by the power of the cross, the instrument of the For the medieval history of Palm Sunday, see James Monti, The week of Salvation: History and Traditions of Holy Week ( Huntingon, Indiana: Sunday Visitor Publishing Division, 1993) pp. 42–48. 6 Richard B.Donovan, The Liturgical Drama in Medieval Spain (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1958), p. 142. 5

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martyrdom of Christ and the sign of his final triumph as well as the way to his glory for those kneeling at its foot. With the carving of the scene labelled Resurectio (Pl. 30), which depicts the Harrowing of Hell, Western patrons of the Malcove cross would find themselves fully in the performance tradition of the theatre proper, adjacent to but outside the liturgy. The scene is detailed and theatrical Christ figures in the presence of the just whom he has liberated, figured as a multitude of people gazing at him from behind what appears to be a separation. In the Byzantine tradition of the carver, of course, this scene does not allude to drama, but in the Western context of its use in meditation it lends itself readily to a theatrical reading. The iconography of the Harrowing of Hell brings to mind a favourite narrative of medieval drama. Moreover the figures of the just separated from the figure of Christ elicit the image an audience, gazing at a performance of the descent of Christ, now hovering over the gates of hell that he has shattered. The cross in the background, on which is hung a crown of thorns, is an especially interesting detail, not only because through its presence the Malcove cross silently performs a self-reflexive gesture for the contemplative observer, but also because it is found, together with the tomb and in exactly the same place and form, in the scenes labelled Sepulcrum and Depositio. It is also present, of course, in the Crucificatio, though in that scene there is no tomb and served effectively as a recollection of dramatic scenes from the crucifixion to the resurrection performed on the same set, consisting of a fixed cross upstage and a moveable tomb downstage. It makes good sense that, in carving the scenes of the deposition, entombment and resurrection, and especially the latter, the Malcove artist should seek a model in the theatrical tradition rather than in the liturgy or in the gospel texts themselves. For both the sacred texts and the Western liturgy of the Paschal triduum ( three days) abound in doctrine and symbolism but are relatively deficient in drama. The person using the cross in a spiritual exercise would have retained many images from the performances witnessed and would in all likelihood interpret them in the doctrinal light of the Paschal triduum. Nor should we think that impressions of such performances were likely to be shallow and dingy, for the productions were spectacular and executed with a degree of attention to lighting dramaturgy that was destined to remain un-

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equalled in Western drama until the twentieth century.76Lighting design was a function of the metaphysics of light that ran thematically through the performance texts, especially in scenes of the Nativity, the Resurrection and the Ascension, in which light was skilfully manipulated to vary the luminosity of the stage, to envelop actors in the brightness of a large halo, or to flood the room with rays from heaven in order to give the audience the aesthetic experience of sudden enlightenment. Whether this aesthetic experience could also make them feel that all darkness had been dispelled from their hearts, whether their glimpse of a theatrical heaven might be sufficient to make them discover in themselves a trace of the intentionality of the real one, whether the elation of their sense of sight could also cause in them an authentic elevation of their souls—all of this is, of course, very doubtful, even for the most pious and the most innocent among them. Theatrical catharsis, as distinct from spiritual catharsis, does not ordinarily bring about a mystical purification of the soul. To see in consciousness a presence of divine intention stripped of all perceptible attributes requires vision of a different order—not vision of things and not even vision of images, but vision through images received by way of things. In the Western context of its use in meditation, the Malcove cross is a work of art capable of raising in the consciousness of its beholders images of faith performed as an aid to a mystical grasp of the divine presence in their minds.

Gosta Bergman, Lighting in the Theatre (Stockholm: Almquist and Wiksell, 1977), p. 30 7

CONCLUSIONS SHEILA CAMPBELL We began with a single object and its box, and our investigations have taken us in many directions. None of our conclusions can be stated with absolute conviction, but rather are offered as a tempered persuasion. Let us review the questions asked and the answers which we have found. The box — We can identify the text whose pages form the cover for the box. We know that the book, whose misprinted pages made up the box, was printed in Venice. We know the city in which the book was made, and the probable date. We know that the cross could have been carved in Venice. To put these facts together is the most obvious line of reasoning. Of course both the cross and the box are small, easily transportable items. The scrap parchment could have been shipped elsewhere, and the cross might have been carved elsewhere, but these are not the first conclusions one would reach. The cross clearly belongs within the oeuvre of the carver Georgios Laskarios. To any observer with a trained eye, this is indisputable. But we are hard pressed to provide firm facts about the carver himself. We can only make suggestions and assumptions based on contemporary conditions and cultures. If he was a monk one might try to find his monastery, a real needle in a haystack task, compounded by the fact that most men who entered a monastery in the sixteenth century did so to renounce the outside world, so his secular history would be considered irrelevant. He might not have been a monk, but his prodigious output of religious art certainly encourages one to that persuasion. The western iconographical elements in the cross clearly point to a creation of the cross, and others like it, in a place where there was a mixture of eastern and western cultures. Many places fit this description after the Ottoman conquest of the Byzantine world, as there was a major diaspora of Greeks throughout the Mediterranean and into Europe. 75

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But taking political factors into consideration, the most likely place appears to be Venice rather than, for example, Cyprus or places where the Ottoman rule was in force. One of the most difficult elements of this exercise has been to determine the use of this cross. Everything seems to point to its creation for private devotions. It can only be viewed by one person at a time. It was meant to sit on a flat surface. It contains a narrative which was a common aide memoire for the faithful to recreate in their minds the events of the Passion of Christ. Yes, some of the examples may have ended up in churches, as a secondary home, but initially they don’t quite fit into liturgical practices. The question then becomes how the cross might have been used by an orthodox believer, and how it might have been used or approached by a catholic believer. The essays by Nerida Newbigin and Domenico Pietropaulo offer insights into the latter. Interpretations of the orthodox devotional responses and of the catholic responses are offered in the discussions of the iconography. But either group could find this cross, and others like it, as useful aids to meditation and prayer. We don’t pretend to have found all the answers, and can only hope that future studies and possibly the discovery of additional works by the same carver, might start to fill in the gaps in our knowledge of this complex and fascinating period in ItaloByzantine studies. The very form of these crosses is an adaptation. For liturgical benedictional purposes the small carved crosses were usually hand held, or had a mounting added in metal, complete with a handle. These crosses are all on a base and are therefore free standing, a departure from the normal Byzantine form for crosses of this size. Laskaris and probably many others, transformed a traditional liturgical object into an object of personal piety which was attractive to western believers. The artists thus created a greater market for items which would be purchased by individuals and not just the limited market of the clergy. To return to the recurring theme of theatre. I believe that this carver was influenced in his imagery by his own experiences of Italian religious theatre, a dramatic form which underwent a revival in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in Byzantium. He saw an opportunity and adapted a form, i.e. the carved cross. Alternatively we can see this cross as a variation of a feature which occurred in northern Europe at

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this time, namely the theme parks which were set up to re-enact pilgrimage.1 Replica’s of appropriate buildings and sites, i.e. the Annunciation, the Baptism, the Crucifixion, the Raising of Lazarus, etc. were created so that people who, for whatever reason, could not go on pilgrimage, could do so by following the pilgrimage path in an outdoor park setting. There they would recite the appropriate prayers, imagine themselves present at the specific event or place, and express their piety in this manner. The Malcove Cross, as representative of a larger group of similar crosses could very well serve the same purpose, albeit in a portable form, something much smaller than fixed constructed buildings. This would be a corollary to the fresco cycles in many Byzantine churches which were not available to the faithful in northern Europe. With such a cross before him/her a pious individual could mentally and spiritually follow the path of the Life and Passion of Christ in a private setting, wherever they might be, without having to visit a physical place or a “pretend/reconstructed version” of the location of a specific event. And furthermore, given the blend of imagery on this cross, the relevant Catholic or Orthodox prayers would still fit.

Kathryn M. Rudy, “Fragments of a Mental Journey to a Passion Park”, in Tributes in Honor of James H. Marrow: Studies in Late Medieval and Renaissance Painting and Manuscript Illumination, ed. Jeffrey F. Hamburger and Anne S. Korteweg (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006), 405–19. This article also includes copious bibliography. I am grateful to Kate for her help with this topic. 1

BIBLIOGRAPHY Anonymous. Byzantine Art, 9th Exhibition of the Council of Europe, Office of the Minister to the Prime Minister of the Greek Government, Department of Antiquities and Archaeological Restoration, Athens 1964. Banfi Luigi et al. ed. Lingua e letteratura italiana dei primi secoli, Pisa: Giardini 1994, II. Bartholomaeis, Vincenzo De Le origini della poesia drammatica 1924; second edition, Turin: SEI, 1952. ———. Laude drammatiche e rappresentazioni sacre, ed. Vincenzo De Bartholomaeis, 3 vols 1943; reprinted Florence: Le Monnier, 1967. Blake, Wilson, Music and Merchants: The Laudesi Companies of Republican Florence Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992. Baxandall, Michael Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy: A Primer in the Social History of Pictorial Style , London, Oxford University Press, 1972. Bergman, Gosta Lighting in the Theatre, Stockholm, Almquist and Wiksell, 1977. Block, K. S. ed., Ludus Coventriae, Early English Text Society, 1922. Bonaini, Francesco et al. ed. Cronache e storie inedite della città di Perugia dal MCL al MDLXIII seguite da inediti documenti, in Archivio storico italiano, 16, 1850–1851, 69–750 (pp. 598–599). Byzantine Art 9th Exhibition of the Council of Europe, Athens 1964. Campbell Sheila ed. University of Toronto Malcove Collection, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1982. Capgrave, John Ye Solace of Pilgrimes: A description of Rome, circa A. D. 1450, ed. C. A. Mills Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1911. Carlson, Marvin Theories of the Theatre, Ithaca and London, Cornell University Press, 1993. Chalkia, Eugenia Post Byzantium: The Greek Renaissance, 15th–18th Century Treasures from the Byzantine & Christian Museum, Athens, Athens 2002. 79

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Christensen, Erwin O. Objects of Medieval Art, National Gallery of Art, Smithsonian, Washington, 1952. Coats, Alan et al,Catalogue of Books Printed in the XVth Century now in the British Museum. Part V: Venice (London, 1924), and “Panormitanus” in Alan Coates, Kristian Jensen, Cristina Dondi, Bettina Wagner. Helen Dixon, with Carolinne White and Elizabeth Mathew. A Catalogue of Books Printed in the Fifteenth Century now in the Bodleian Library (Oxford, 2005). Cole, Bruce Sienese Painting from its Origins to the 15th Century, New York, Harper & Row, 1987. Cole, Diane — see entry for Nerida Newbigin. Coppo, Anna Maria “Spettacoli alla corte di Ercole I,” in Contributi dell’Istituto di Filologia Moderna, Serie Storia del Teatro I, Milan, Vita e Pensiero, 1968. D'Ancona, Alessandro Origini del teatro italiano, 2nd ed. Turin, Loescher, 1891, I. Da Todi, Iacopone Laude, ed. Franco Mancini, Bari, Laterza, 1974. Delcorno, Carlo“The Language of Preachers. Between Latin and Vernacular,”The Italianist 15,1995. Donovan, Richard B. The Liturgical Drama in Medieval Spain, Toronto, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1958. Elbern, Victor H. “Ein Kreuz des Georgios Laskaris in den Berliner Museen” Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen, 2003, Bd. 45, pp. 65–76. Evans, Helen C. ed..Byzantium, Faith and Power (1261–1557), N.Y. 2004. Fletcher, Sir Banister A History of Architecture, 18th ed., New York, Scribners and Sons, 1975. Francastel, Pierre Guardare il Teatro, ed. Fabrizio Cruciani, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1987. Füssel, Stephan Gutenberg and the Impact of Printing, tr. Douglas Martin, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003. Garrone, Virginia Galante L’apparato scenico del dramma sacro in Italia, Turin, Bona,1935 Geanakoplos, D. J. Byzantium: Church, Society and Civilization Seen through Contemporary Eyes., Chicago 1984. Georgopoulou, Maria “Venice and the Byzantine Sphere”, Byzantium, Faith and Power ( 1261–1557), ed. Helen C. Evans, N.Y. 2004 Gerulaitis, Leonardas Vytautas Printing and Publishing in Fifteenth-Century Venice, Chicago-London, 1976.

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Gilbert, Creighton E.ed. Italian Art: 1400 –1500, Evanston, Northwestern University Press, 1992. Green, Rosalie B. — see entry for Ragusa Hindman, Sandra ed. Printing the Written Word: The Social History of Books, circa 1450–1520, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991. Hain, Ludwig Repertorium Bibliographicum (Stuttgart, 1826–1838; reprinted Milan, 1948), Vol. II, Part 2. Hindman Sandra ed.. “The impact of printing on miniaturists in Venice after 1469,”Lilian Armstrong in Printing the Written Word: The Social History of Books, circa 1450–1520, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991. Holme, Bryan Mediaeval Pageant, London, Thames and Hudson, 1987. Kazhdan, Alexander P. Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, 3 vols. 1991. Kernodle, George R. From Art to Theater: Form and Convention in the Renaissance, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1944. Lafontaine-Dosogne, Jacqueline.“The Iconography of theCycle of the Life of the Virgin,” P.Underwood, The Kariye Djami vol 4, Studies in the Art of the Kariye Djami and Its Intellectual Background, pp. 161– 194. Bollingen Series LXX 1996. ———. loc. cit. “The Iconography of the Cycle of the Infancy of Christ,” pp. 195–242. Lyall, R.J. “Materials: The paper revolution”, in Book Production and Publishing in Britain 1375–1475, ed. Jeremy Griffiths and Derek Pearsall Cambridge, 1989, 11. Lloyd, Christopher Italian Paintings before 1600 in the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago 1993. Lognon, Jean The Très Riches Heures of Jenm Duc di Berry, New York, Thames and Hudson, 1969. Mâle, Emile L’art réligieux de XIIIe siècle en France: étude sur l'iconographie du Moyen Age et sur ses sources d’inspiration, Paris, Leroux, 1898; in English, The Gothic Image: Religious Art in France in the Thirteenth Century, trans. Dora Nussey, New York: Harper & Row, 1958. Mancini, Franco ed. Iacopone da Todi, Laude,.Bari: Laterza, 1974. Monaci, Ernesto “Appunti per la storia del teatro italiano,” Rivista di filologia romanza, I,1874. ———. “Cronaca della città di Perugia dal 1309 al 1491 nota col nome di Diario del Graziani,” Cronache e storie inedite della città di Perugia dal MCL al MDLXIII seguite da inediti documenti, ed. Francesco Bonaini and others, in Archivio storico italiano, 16, 1850–1851.

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Monti, James The week of Salvation: History and Traditions of Holy Week, Huntingon, Indiana, Sunday Visitor Publishing Division, 1993. Nerbano, Mara “Play and Record: Ser Tommaso di Silvestro and the Theatre of Medieval and Early Modern Orvieto,” European Medieval Drama 7, 2004. Newbigin, Nerida “Le Rappresentazioni di San Giuliano lo Spedaliere: La festa di San Giuliano,” Studi e problemi di critica testuale 31, 1985, 131–166. ———. “The Decorum of the Passion: The Gonfalone Plays in the Colosseum, 1490 to 1539,” Confraternities and the Visual Arts in the Italian Renaissance: Ritual, Spectacle, Image, ed. Barbara Wisch and Diane Cole Ahl, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2000. Norton, F. J. Italian Printers 1501–1520 , London, 1958. Palmes, James C. ed. Sir Bannister Fletcher’s A History of Architecture, 18th edition, revised New York 1975. Papastratos, Dory Greek Orthodox Religious Engravings 1665–1899, Athens 1990. 2 vols. Patrinellis, Ch. G. Treasures of Mount Athos,Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki Cultural Capital of Europe, 1971. Piccat, Marco Rappresentazioni popolari e feste in Revello nella metà del XV secolo, Turin, Centro Studi Piemontesi, 1986. Post Byzantium: The Greek Renaissance, 15th — 18th Century, Treasures from the Byzantine and Christian Museum, Athens, Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Athens 2002. Ragusa, Isa and Green, Rosalie B. trans. Meditations on the Life of Christ,, Princeton, N.J. Princeton University Press, 1961. Raina,Pio “Il Cantare dei Cantari,”Zeitschrift fur romanische Philologie 2, 1878. de Rougemont, Denis “Religion and the Mission of the Artist,” The new Orpheus: Essays Toward a Christian Poetic, ed. Nathan A. Scott, Jr., New York, Sheed and Ward, 1964. Rudy, Kathryn M. “Fragments of a Mental Journey to a Passion Park,” in Tributes in Honor of James H. Marrow: Studies in Late Medieval and Renaissance Painting and Manuscript Illumination, ed. Jeffrey F. Hamburger and Anne S. Korteweg (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006), 405–19. Soteriou, Georgiou Führer durch das byzantinische Museum in Athen, 1924. The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. 1969. Todi, Iacopone da Laude ed. Franco Mancini, Bari, Laterza, 1974. Treasures of Mt. Athos, Thessaloniki 1997.

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Underwood, Paul The Kariye Djami vol 4, Studies in the Art of the Kariye Djami and Its Intellectual Background, pp. 161–194. Bollingen Series LXX 1996. Varanini, Giorgio “Alcune osservazioni su due scritti dedicati ai Cantari religiosi senesi del Trecento,” reprinted in his collected essays, Lingua e letteratura italiana dei primi secoli, ed. Luigi Banfi et al., Pisa, Giardini 1994, II. ———. Cantari religiosi senesi del Trecento, Bari, Laterza, 1965. Vattasso, Marco Per la storia del dramma sacro in Italia, Roma, Tipografia Vaticana, 1903. Ventrone, Paola “On the Use of Figurative Art as a Source for the Study of Medieval Spectacles,” Comparative Drama 25, 1991. Volbach, Wolfgang Fritz Bildwerke des Kaiser-Friedrich Museums, Berlin 1920. Wilson, Blake, Music and Merchants: The Laudesi Companies of Republican Florence, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1992. Wisch, Barbara — see entry for Newbigin. Zorzi, Ludovico “Note sul motivo della scena a portico,” appendix to his Il teatro e la città: Saggi sulla scena italiana, Turin, Einaudi, 1977. ———. “Figurazione pittorica e figurazione teatrale,” in Storia dell’arte italiana, I, Materiali e problemi, 1, Questioni e metodi, Turin, Einaudi, 1978. http://www.kykkos-museum.cy.net/pics/33.html

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General view of case

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2.

General view of case, infra red photo

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3.

Detail of case, infra red photo

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4.

Detail of case, infra red photo

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General view of cross and base

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6.

Detail of Cross, Front

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Detail of Cross, Back

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8.

Base Side A

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Base Side B

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10. Top of cross upright, Grotesque mask

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11. Detail of cross upright, grotesque mask

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12. Top of cross bar, St. Paul

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13. Annunciation ANNUNTIATIO

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14. Young Mary in the temple (?)

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15. Nativity NATIVITAS

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16. Nativity detail

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17. Baptism of Christ

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18. Presentation in the temple PURGATIO

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19. Entry Into Jerusalem PALMARUM CELEBRATIO

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20. Flight Into Egypt FUGAGENITRICS

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21. Christ Teaching CHRISTUS DOCET

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22. Christ Teaching the Marys XPS DOCET MARIAS

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23. Resurrection of Lazarus RESURECTIO LAZARI

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24. Transfiguration TRANSFORMATIO

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25. Raising of the Cross

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26. Crucifixion CRUCIFICATIO

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27. Crucifixion detail

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28. Descent from the Cross

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29. Lamentation / Entombment SEPULCRUM

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30. Resurrection/Anastasis RESURECTIO

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31. Entombment DEPOSITIO DNI IN SEPULCRU

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32. Meeting with Thomas PALPATIO

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33. Ascension ASCENSIO DNI

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34. Pentecost

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35. Arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane

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36. Arrest in the Garden, detail

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37. Trial scene

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38. Trial scene

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40. Trial scene

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41. Trial scene detail

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42. Betrayal

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44. Trial scene

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Trial scene detail

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Trial scene

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47. Trial scene detail

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48. Christ Carrying His Cross

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49. Christ Carrying His Cross detail

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50. Trial Scene

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52. Trial Scene

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53. Trial Scene detail

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54. Christ before Pilate, the Flagellation and the Rending of Christ’s Robe

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55. Christ before Pilate, the Flagellation and the Rending of Christ’s Robe detail

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56. Crucifixion (?)

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57. Crucifixion (?) detail

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58. Soldiers at tomb

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59. Soldiers at tomb detail

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60. Women at tomb with angel or Christ

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61. Women at tomb with angel or Christ , detail

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62. Christ Washing Disciples’ Feet

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63. Christ Washing Disciples’ Feet, detail

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64. Garden of Gethsemane

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65. Garden of Gethsemane, detail

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66. Women at tomb with angel

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68. Women with Disciples

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69. Women with Disciples, detail

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70. Last Supper

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71. Last Supper, detail

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72. Christ with Apostles at Emmaus (?)

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73. Christ with Apostles at Emmaus, detail

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74. Two angels and three women at tomb

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75. Two angels and three women at tomb, detail

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76. Three women and disciples at tomb

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77. Three women and disciples at tomb, detail

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78. Communion of Apostles (?)

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79. Communion of Apostles, detail

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80. Christ appearing at Emmaus

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81. Christ appearing at Emmaus, detail

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82. Berlin Cross: Staatliche Museen Zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, inv. 793. Reprinted with permission.

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