Processional cross

Workshop of RUGGERO DI HELMERSHAUSEN Processional cross mid-13th century gilded, incised and chiseled copper (cross); cast bronze (Christ); 44.6X23.2 cm Church of Santa Maria a Casale Conceived with the idea of being seen from both sides, this ancient cross shows the archaic image of Christus tiriumphans in relief on the recto, with the incised figures of the Madonna, Saint John the Evangelist, an angel and Christ in the sepulcher placed under the mount of Golgotha, on the ends. Instead, on the verso of the cross, the figure of the dead Christ is engraved in the center as well as the symbols for the four evangelists enclosed in circular forms at the ends. The precious object (lacking its ends) must have come from the thriving goldsmith’s workshop of the Rhenish Belgian Ruggero di Helmershausen, active around the mid 13th century, as convincing comparisons with crosses kept in the Schnùtgen Museum of Cologne reveal, all characterized, like this one, by an elementary as much as a monumental anatomy and by the Christ’s embarrassing hieratic fixity.