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Croce dipinta di San Pietro in Villore San Giovanni d'Asso
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Artist: Maestro di San Pietro in Villore
Current location: Palazzo Borgia - Museo Diocesano
Original location: San Pietro in Villore
DESCRIPTIVE INFORMATION
The painting comes from the Romanesque church of San Pietro in Villore, a vernacular corruption of San Pietro in Vincoli. The building, still well preserved, stands just outside San Giovanni d'Asso: a medieval village straddling the Crete Senesi and the Val d'Orcia.
It is possible that the cross was originally intended for this church, although its earliest mention dates back to 1813, when Ettore Romagnoli saw it for the first time in the crypt.
The cross depicts the living and triumphant Christ at its center; above the thick halo is the white inscription on a red field: "[iesv]s nasarenvs / rex ivdeorv[m]." In the cymatium, two half-length flying angels hold, within a clypeus, the image of the blessing Redeemer with a book in his left hand, in what has been interpreted as a symbolic representation of the Ascension. Young half-length angels also appear at the ends of the transverse arms, while in the panels, two on each side, are four standing figures.
The woman depicted in the place of honor, veiled and dressed in white, raises her hands to hold a chalice, in which she collects the blood from the tiny wound in Christ's side. This iconography is consistent with the allegory of the Church, which enjoyed great popularity in the centuries after the year 1000.
This iconographic rarity also appears in the Porziano Cross, a work of the Spoleto school dating to the 13th century and preserved in the Treasury Museum of the Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi. Compared to the latter, the woman collecting the blood depicts not the Church, but more simply Mary of James, also known as Mary of Cleophas. Behind her, wearing a blue cloak, we recognize the Virgin Mary; opposite her are John the Evangelist and, cloaked in red, Mary Magdalene.
Croce dipinta di San Pietro in Villore