Barbara Baert The Legend of the True Cross Italy (ﬁ ... · Andria is located to the right of the side aisle on a trapezoid ground plan.11 The ground plan owes its ca pr i cio us

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SAThis contribution deals with four mural paintings of the True Cross legend in the Santa Croce church of the laura of Andria, near Bari [Fig. 1].1 In 1934, Bruno Molajoli was the fi rst to men-tion a heavily damaged mural cycle in the Santa Croce of An-dria.2 Alba Medea subsequently included his discovery in the ca ta logue Gli affreschi delle cripte eremitiche pugliesi (1939).3 The cycle is mentioned by Marisa Milella in Andar per mare. Puglia e Mediterraneo tra mito e storia (1998).4 Mariella Basile Bon san te uses these data as a starting point for her article in Stella Calò Mariani’s Il cammino di Gerusalemme, the proceed-ings of a con ference in Bari, published in 2002.5 Nonetheless, the importance of these mural paintings for the diffusion of the theme of the Le gend of the True Cross in Mediterranean Ita ly, and their function in the context of the Apulian cripte ere miti-che, have so far been neglected.6

The Legend of the Finding of the Cross: Andria and its Iconographic Tradition

The legend of the fi nding of the Cross arose at the end of the fourth century.7 Initially, it was a collection of brief patristic testi-monies. In his De obitu Theodosii (395), Ambrose mentions how Helen went to Jerusalem at the request of her son Constantine – an example for the deceased emperor Theodosius for whom

Barbara Baert

The Legend of the True Cross Reconsidered: A Discovery in the Grotto Church of Andria, Italy (fi fteenth century)

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the eulogy was written. With the aid of the Holy Spirit, she re - co vered Christ’s Cross on Mount Golgotha. A few years earlier, Chrysostom had already referred to the relic of the Cross (eighty-fi fth Homily on the Gospel of John, 390), but he did not associate it with Helen. Paulinus of Nola (402) and Rufi nus (403) both men-tion Helen’s role in the recovery of the relic, and say, respec-tively, she was helped by the Jews and the local bishop Macar-ius. The true Cross could be distinguished from two other cross-es by the resurrection of a dead woman or man.

These brief patristic references are developed further in an anonymous variant, the legend of Judas Cyriacus, which has it

that the Jew Judas revealed the location of the Cross under pressure from Helen. After seven days of starvation in a dried-out well, he gave in and told her the secret that he had heard from his forefathers a long time before: the Cross of the Messiah lies hidden in the place of Golgotha. This form of the legend, pro bably of Syrian origin, was translated into Latin in early times and found its way into iconography in Carolingian times.8 From the seventh century onwards, the legend of the fi nding of the Cross was supplemented by the legend of the exaltation of the Cross, in which the Byzantine emperor Heraclius was the pro ta-gonist, and from the twelfth century onwards by the legend of the wood of the Cross, about the origins of the Cross’s wood and its fate throughout the Old Testament.9 Jacob of Voragine brings all these branches of legend together in his Legenda aurea (c. 1260), which is where the legend of the Cross was gi-ven a literary expression fi tting its importance on the liturgical ca lendar, in which May 3 marks the Inventio Sanctae Crucis (He- len) and September 14 the Exaltatio Sanctae Crucis (Hera-

1. «Legend of the Finding of the True Cross», c. 1430, mural paintings, Andria, Santa Croce church of the laura

2. «The Arrival of Helen and her Retinue in Jerusalem», c. 1430, mural paintings, Andria, Santa Croce church of the laura

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clius).10 The Legenda aurea was also to become the source for the cy clic iconography of the legend of the Cross. In Andria, this cy cle is limited to the Helen episodes and the Inventio Sanctae Crucis.

*

The Legend of the Finding of the Cross in the grotto church of Andria is located to the right of the side aisle on a trapezoid ground plan.11 The ground plan owes its ca pr i cio us ness to the numerous alterations to the church’s structure through out the ages. The grotto church was hollowed out in the tenth centu-ry by Greek hermits, the so-called Basilian monks, who were continuously moving northward from the East over Sicily along the Adriatic coast. There was a morphological ada ptation of the choir by Benedictine monks in the thirteenth cen tury. In the nine-teenth century, the crypt was dug out to above ground level and windows were inserted, unfortunately destroying parts of the

Cross legend cycle in the process.12 The cycle is told in four separate scenes13:

– arrival of Helen and her retinue in Jerusalem [Fig. 2]; – Judas Cyriacus’ penitence in a dried-out well; after seven

days without food or water he takes Helen to the place of the Cross [Fig. 3];

– test of the Cross; the true Cross is recognized when a young man comes back to life [Figs 4 a–b];

– veneration of the true Cross [Fig. 5].

A visit in situ immediately showed that the windows destroyed two other scenes that were part of the cycle, as the bor ders of the scenes run through them. On the basis of the ico nographic tradi-tion, I would postulate it was a scene depicting the Finding of the Cross, as it is never lacking in cycles like this one. From the per-spective of the literary tradition, the sixth sce ne could possibly have been one in which Helen divides the Cross between Jerusa-lem, Constantinople, and Rome, possibly en acted in a translatio

2.

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or a procession. An alternative could be the fi nd ing of the nail, which in some literary sources comes after the ve neration. The fact that the nail holes in the cross are clearly vi si ble in the other scenes gives this possibility a substantial like lihood.

The mural painting programme in the church spread out over the walls in different phases throughout the ages, starting in the thirteenth century, which makes stylistic research rather com plex. A similar hand can be recognized in the scene with Do rothy and the scenes from Genesis with the appearance of a peculiar Trinity – a body with three identical heads – in the creation of Eve.14 In the two reports of 1978 and 1989 mentioned above, a stylistic congeniality with a representation of Urban V (1310 – Avignon 1370) is mentioned as terminus post quem.15 Tradition has it that this pope had found the heads of Sts Peter and Paul in San Giovanni in Laterano, which he later wore as his attributes.16

The artist of Santa Croce is characterised as provincial, even clumsy, and an epigone of Sienese art, which had already passed its climax at the time.17 A lack of sources makes it diffi -cult to set an exact date. Molajoli suggests the beginning of the fi fteenth century, and in restoration reports mention is made of the last quarter of the fourteenth century (1375–1400).18 Ferdi-nando Bologna sets the date somewhere halfway through the Trecento.19 The margins for our dating are thus relatively broad, ranging from 1350 to 1430. It is likely that the paintings consist of two layers: one late fourteenth-century hand that also paint-ed pope Urban, and a later hand that painted the fi nding of the Cross at the beginning of the fi fteenth century.20

All the datings proposed fall within the margins of the well-known and elaborately researched Tuscan Cross legend clus-ter: Florence (1388–1392), Volterra (1410) and Empoli (1425). The cycle painted by Agnolo Gaddi 21 in 1388–1392 was a pro-

3. «Judas Cyriacus in the Dried-out Well; After Seven Days of Hunger he Takes Helen to the Place of the Cross», c. 1430, mural paintings, Andria, Santa Croce church of the laura

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4 a. The True Cross is Distinguished from the other Cross in a Test on a Young Man who is Resurrected», c. 1430, mural paintings, Andria, Santa Croce church of the laura

5. «The True Cross is Venerated», c. 1430, mural paintings, Andria, Santa Croce church of the laura

4 b. Detail of Fig. 4a

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totype, as becomes clear in a Montepulciano document which states that in 1415 Nanno di Caccia was paid for the creation of a copy of the cycle in the local church of San Francesco, which is lost today.22 The cycle of Piero della Francesca in Arezzo (be-fore 1466) is considered to be the high point for this group.23

The cycle in Andria, however, very clearly belongs to a diffe-rent tradition and brings to the fore different iconographical em-phases.

An Enthroned Helen: Prototypes to the South of Florence

Helen is represented sitting on a throne, accompanied by sol-diers. The imperial setting and the manus militaris are charac te-ristic for the earliest iconographies of the fi nding of the Cross. In the book of prayer of Wessobrunn, dated 814, one of the oldest transcrip tions of the Cross fi nding legend in the Latin West is illustrated by seventeen pen drawings [Fig. 6].24 In Ver-

celli’s ca nones conciliarum (c. 800) texts of the fourth and the fi fth cen tury, councils are introduced by drawings of the fi nding of the Cross [Fig. 7].25 Both text and drawings originated in the diocese of Milan.

The iconographic tradition of the fi nding of the Cross thus goes back to Carolingian times. The fi rst monumental cycle, ho w- ever, is to be traced back to the twelfth century in the church of San Severo in Bardolino, near Verona.26 The very static stag -ing can also be found in panel painting. The Master of Tressa dated his antependium, which was probably made for the choir of Siena Cathedral, in November 1214 [Fig. 8].27 It is the oldest al tar piece in Italy and as such plays a key role in the litur gi cal re form of the Fourth Lateran Council, which took place in the same year. That archaic setting is also present on the pre della

6. South-German, Wessobrunner Gebetbuch, 814, coloured pen drawing, clm. 22053, fol. 7v, Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek

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(c. 1400) pre served in Siena’s Opera del Duomo.28 In the Tu scan cycles, how ever, the iconography is more dynamic, and the re-petitive structure of the enthroned and questioning Helen dis-appears. As the iconography loses its original archaic character in this operation, it also loses its link with the original literary tra-dition wherein the supremacy over Jews was very prominent. The mural paintings of Andria thus uphold the connection with the prototypical iconography.

In the fourteenth and fi fteenth centuries, the legend of the Cross in Italy had developed along two different pathways, lead-ing to two iconographical traditions: the innovative monumen-tal cycles of Tuscany, and the iconography in which the early medieval roots remained very much present. There have been no fi ndings of concrete interchanging of models between both traditions in this area. This is undoubtedly partly due to the fact that research into the dissemination of the Mediterranean ma-terial has long been overshadowed by the Tuscan variant.29 As such, even today the iconography of the legend of the Cross is

7. «Finding of the Cross», Canones conciliarum, Milan (?), 4th quarter of the 8th century or 1st quarter of the 9th century, pen drawing, ms. 165, fol. 2r, Vercelli, Bibliotheca Capitulare

8. «Retable of the Maestro di Tressa», 1215, Badia Berardenga in Fontebuona (Castelnovo, Siena), Siena, Pinacoteca Nazionale

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9. «Helen Questions the Jews», 16th-century hand, Codex Rossiana Cod. Vat. Ross. lat. 1168, fol. 7, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana

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often still seen as an exclusively Tuscan matter, and many pos-sible traces in the South have remained unnoticed.30 We take it upon ourselves here to make some fi rst suggestions for the refi nement of the research.

In the Vatican Library’s Cod. Vat. Ross. lat. 1168, a sixteenth-century hand in the manuscript mentions seven drawings that refer to a lost, mid-fourteenth century cycle in the church of San-ta Eufemia in Rome [Fig. 9].31 The cycle is virtually unknown in the research. The church was located in the neighbourhood to the south of Santa Maria Maggiore. An early Christian church was destroyed in 1580, but is still mentioned in Francesco Del Sodo’s Compendio delle Chiese con le loro fondationi (c.1575).32 Here too, attention was focussed on the questioning by an en-throned queen represented in profi le. This characteristic depic-tion was also found in manuscripts and in panel painting.

A Latin legendarium, compiled in Palermo between 1310 and 1320, which Buchthal sees as stemming from a twelfth-cen-tury prototype, recounts the legend of the fi nding of the Cross in a similar way [Fig. 10].33 In fourteenth-century Sicily, people were looking for points of contact with fl ourishing artistic periods of the past (namely the eleventh and twelfth centuries) and Byz-antine and/or Sicilian manuscripts and mosaics from just that

time were used as exemplars. Tapping into new sources revital-ised the Sicilian workshops and also returned older iconogra-phies to attention. It is possible that an older, now lost model of the fi nding of the Cross preceded this legendarium.

Both examples therefore testify to the dynamism in the ma-terial of the Cross legend in the area south of Florence. This could point to a specifi c traffi cking of models on the Mediterra-nean roads, for which Andria served as a Cross legend intersec-tion between the descent into Rome and the climb to Sicily and Calabria.34

The Veneration of the Cross. Syncretic Models between East and West

In addition to the imperial setting, specifi c attention was devoted to the veneration scene in the Andria murals. The scene serves as a devotional image (Andachtsbild). It is also often found in breviaries. The prayer book of Joan of Naples, in the mid-four-teenth century, combines images of the fi nding of the Cross and the veneration of the Cross on the altar [Fig. 11].35 A Milanese Dominican missal of c. 1400 features a scene where the fi nding of the Cross ends in the veneration of a monumental Cross.36 Representations of the veneration of the Cross render the devo-tional function operational, they focus attention on the Cross as an object, as a relic, and establish an iconographic relationship with the rite.

10. «Helen Questions the Jews», Menologion, Palermo, 1310, ms. I.II.17, fol. 135v, Turin, Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria

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11. «Veneration of the Cross», c. 1346–1362, Prayer Book of Joan of Naples, cod. 1912, fol. 218, Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek

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12. «Helen and Constantine Flanking the Cross», c. 1070, mural painting in Göreme, chapel of the El Nazar church, Asia Minor

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The central elevated cross is reminiscent of Byzantine sche-mata in which Helen and Constantine stand beside the Cross, referring to the feast of the Holy Cross which is celebrated on September 14 in the East. In the Carolingian reform, this day be-came the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, with May 3 cele-brating the Finding of the Cross.37 The oldest example of this type can be found in a Syrian-Jacobean homilarium of the eighth or ninth century.38 Most iconographic testimonies of this ‘fl ank-ing’ type, however, only surface from the tenth century onwards in the East.39 Examples have been recovered in which Helen and Constantine appear fl anking the cross on host-irons.40 The Bode Museum in Berlin hosts a similar example: a Greek ivory from the tenth century which represents Helen holding a globe in her hand. In the church of Göreme (El Nazar in Asia Minor) a painted type has been found (1070) [Fig. 12].41 It should be remarked here that Byzantine art has but rarely produced a nar-rative fi nding of the Cross, but when it did it always kept to this sche me. An exception at hand is the Homilies of St Gregory of

Nazian zus of 880 [Fig. 13].42 From the twelfth century onwards, the West im ported similar schemes, as in the Salzburg Antipho-nary of St Peter (1160) [Fig. 14].43 Such solution was known from, for in stan ce, staurothekes brought from the East. The triptych, in all probability made for Abbot Wibald of Stavelot (1154–1158), was designed especially for two such Byzantine staurothekes with depictions of Helen and Constantine; each of the side pan-els had three medallions with the legend of the fi nding of the Cross [Fig. 15].44

Still visibly bearing reminders of its Eastern roots, a Western narrative variant branches out of the adopted Byzantine scheme from the twelfth century onwards. In the Zwiefalten Chronicon and martyrologium (1160), we fi nd a drawing with a layout that includes a presentation of the Cross by Helen and Judas (who, as it were, takes the place that Constantine occupied in the East-ern model), and a testing of the Cross [Fig. 16].45 The drawing re presents the Feast of the Finding of the Cross on May 3. On the monumental Cross of Kelloe, Durham (c. 1200) one fi nds in the lower register a crux gemmata presented by Helen and Ju-das [Fig. 17].46 In the church of Santamaria Orlea in Romania we also fi nd a mural from 1311 of this specifi c type [Fig. 18].47 In rare cases, the solution is supplemented with a Cross test which is comprised in the static presentation of the Cross, as in

13. «Helen and Judas Find the Cross», c. 880–886, Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus, Constantinople, Basileos I Cod. grec. 510, fol. 440r, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France

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Santa Maria of Barbera, Catalonia [Fig. 19].48 The Master of Po-liña presented the True Cross as a crux gemmata.

In his particular treatment of iconography, the Andria artist brought together the limited tectonics of the composition with a narrative economy, and had succeeded in retaining an allu-sion to the Greek model. The carefully painted textures are those

of the reality of materials, but also carry a deep sym bolic refer-ence to the relic of the Cross as Lignum vitae. It is the texture that we also see on staurothekes such as the twelfth-century Cross of Lorraine in Bari Cathedral [Fig. 20].49 As such, the Santa Croce cycle displays affi nities with the traf fi cking of relics and memo ri-als from the Holy Land and By zan tium, which evidently had a strong energy fi eld in this part of Apulia.50

The iconographic context of Andria could be summarized as conventional, going back to early-medieval prototypes. These conventions are also connected to a cycle in Rome now lost, as well as to workshops in Southern Italy and Sicily. The scenes of the

14. «Helen and Constantine», c. 1160, Antiphonarium of St Peter, series nova 2700, fol. 338, Salzburg, Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek

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lower register bring together a Byzantine static and a Latin narra-tive model. The same syncretism is found in twelfth-cen tury manu-scripts from Central Europe, where Byzantine models were used in dioceses and workshops. The mixed type also appears elsewhere in Western Europe where Byzantine infl uences remained strong for a relatively long time. In Andria, we encounter a fusion on the basis of the Greek–Latin dialogue which is typical for the grotto churches where exogenous and endogenous iconographies blend.

East meets West. The Grotto Church and the Context of the civiltà rupestre

The Basilian monks were Greek eremites that had fl ed the East and had settled in Longobard South Italy in a landscape char-acterised by both mildness and ferocity. French, English, and German pilgrims reported on the similarities between the land-scape, the liturgical customs in the churches and works of art of Apulia on the one hand, and the Holy Land from where they were returning on the other hand.51 The monks lived in isolated caves and had meetings in a central house of prayer on days of celebration, which eventually created smaller or larger commu-nities of anchorites, the so-called laure.52 The social structure of the laure is rural, and the communities formed a self-supporting

15. Renier de Huy (?), «Six Medals with the Legend of Constantine and Helen», 1154–1158, triptych of the Holy Cross for abbot Wibald, Stavelot (in the centre two Byzantine triptychs), New York, Pierpont Morgan Library

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16. «Cross Finding and Cross Presentation», Zwiefalten, 1160, Chronicon and marty rologium of Usuardus, Cod. Hist. Fol. 415, fol. 39, Stuttgart, Landesbibliothek

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17. Stone cross with three registers from the Cross legend, c. 1200, Kelloë (Durham), north wall of the parish church

18. «Cross Presentation», 1311, mural painting in the north side of the nave in Santa Maria Orlea (Romania)

19. Master of Poliña, «Presentation of the Cross», late 12th or beginning of the 13th century, mural painting, church of Santa-Maria, Barbera, Spain (Catalonia)17.

19.

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economic system on the basis of agriculture and with the aid of water cisterns. In Andria, the Santa Croce was the main church of a laura that had settled by the Aveldio river.53 Nothing of this idyll remains today, as project developers destroyed the crypts for the construction of housing blocks.

The laure played an important role in the lives of the local population, not only because of exchange and commerce on an agricultural level, but also owing to the fact that the main grotto church became the central place of worship for the na-tive farmers. They presumably helped with the toil of labour, and some authors assume that the more talented artists in the lo-cal province were recruited, which added certain suppleness to the Byzantine models of their Greek patrons on the basis of a spontaneous narrative formal language. This specifi c so -cial, economic and religious synthesis was abruptly shattered in the ninth century with the coming of the Saracens, but fl our-ished again under Norman rule with a new infl ux of anchorites and the fi rst great mural programmes to be preserved still as a consequence. From the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries onwards, under the House of Anjou, the system and morphol-ogy of the churches was adapted to the needs of the Latin Church. This phenomenon is what is called the civiltà rupestre in Southern Italy.

‘Ma qual’è la presenza artistica, il le vello di cultura di quella popolazione che voi chiamate: civiltà rupestre!’, exclaimed An-dré Guillou at the fi rst in ter national conference on La civiltà ru-pestre medioevale, the proceedings of which also record com-ments on the lectures.54 It was October 3, 1971, and the celebra-ted André Guillou felt forced to draw the following conclusion: ‘Civiltà rupestre è per me soltanto una parte di una civiltà molto più estesa di cui ne ignoriamo sia un ordine cronologico, sia un aspetto di un maggiore civiltà’. He then added that one should never lose sight of the fact that the quality of the murals is, on average, relatively high.55

In other words: research in to the civiltà rupestre requires a methodological model that studies the dynamics between the laure and its environment, and not the laure as a separate entity. What we call civiltà rupestre is thus a multicultural melting pot with polyvalent usage and, hence, a continuously changing sys-tem of meaning. When the legend of the Cross was introduced to the Andria laura, the presence of Greek monks was already diminishing under the infl uence of the house of Anjou. From 1308 to 1487, Andria belonged to the dukes of Del Balzo, who had strengthened their position at the French and Neapolitan courts through astute marriages.56 Bertrando del Balzo was married to Charles II of Anjou’s daughter, Beatrice, at the begin-ning of the fourteenth century. Andria, only a few kilometres north of Cas tel Monte, had both geographical and symbolic sig-nifi cance. The Del Balzo family is known to have renewed the local relevance of the grotto churches and to have continued their use for mass. The San Francesco church of Irsinia in the 20. «Lorraine Cross», 12th century, Bari, cathedral treasury

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21. «Cross Wood Legend», c. 1340, Lanciano, San Michele, campanile

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Andria area dates from somewhere between 1370 and 1373, and was specially decorated for the daughter of Francesco del Balzo (1330–1422), Margherita di Taranto.57 Particularly remark-able in this case is the fact that one also fi nds a representation of Urban V there. In the 1979 internal report, this is extrapolated to the Santa Croce: it claims that this program too was spurred on by Margherita.58

But what was the motivation for the legend of the fi nding of the Cross in this specifi c Andria grotto church? Experiences in other cases have allowed us to recognize force fi elds and to describe pivotal factors. The iconography of the fi nding of the Cross appears to be especially sensitive in four contexts: anti-Judaism (1), fascination with the origins of the Christian church

protected by courts (2), the Franciscan protection of holy places in Jerusalem (3), a remarkable relic of the Cross with an active circuit of pilgrimages (4).

The Converted Jew

The legend of the fi nding of the Cross is the story of a Jew who converted in the light of the tangible evidence of the Cross. In the Wessobrunn Gebetbuch (see above), clues were found that the theme had an authentic function in Charlemagne’s conversion campaigns. Sometimes it also concerns local dis pu- tes and negotiations between Jews and Christians in a certain community.

This factor was partly de ci sive for a mural cycle in Lan -cia no, Abruzzi, which was made aro und 1340 in the campanile of the church of San Nicola, at the foot of the Sacco, the Jewish ghetto [Fig. 21].59 Lanciano was an unusual pilgrimage destina-

22. «Cross Finding», 13th century, Rome, Santi Quattro Coronati, Oratorio San Silvestro

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tion, as the bleeding host reser ved in the church of San Fran-cesco kept anti-Semitism alive in the city. A similar confl ict situa-tion, one that even led to the banishment of Jews, was the pre-text for a legend of the fi nding of the Cross in San Francesco of Montegiorgio, Marche (c. 1420).60 It is well-known that Jewish communities had settled in Bari since the days of the Longo-bards.61 In Andria, how ever, we have found no specifi c evidence with regard to this issue.

Still, it is a fact that the Jews in the Andria cycle are re pre-sented according to the outer features that they were asso ciated with in those days.62 Judas has a long beard and the tallith – a prayer shawl worn by Jewish men at prayer [Fig. 4b]. This un deniably ‘Jewish’ portrayal of Judas, with the typical Jew’s hat like that in the Sacramentary of Zwiefalten and the Wi bald trip tych (see below), starts in the twelfth century, but be co mes less customary in the four teenth- and fi fteenth-century cycles63. Only in Montegiorgio, probably not without reason, do we notice that Ju das and his helpers stay recognizable as typical ‘grey-beards’ in opposition to the Christian group. In Andria, Judas is also represented as a distinctive ‘other’, as someone who is not part of the ‘neutral’ group. We would also like to point out that the rather conservative traditions which feature an enthroned Helen interrogating Judas unavoidably display a more aggres-sive tendency towards the Jewish antagonist.

In Hoc Signo Vinces

Constantine commands Helen to go on a pilgrimage to Jerusa-lem to fi nd what appeared to him in a vision: In hoc signo vinces. The factor amounts to the dynastic protection of the Roman Ec-clesia in the sign of the cross wood. The cross was given to Rome as vexillium. The combination of Constantine and the leg-end of the fi nding of the Cross in Rome’s Santi Quattro Coronati (thirteenth century) is to be situated within this specifi c context [Fig. 22].64 In addition, the cross was the central element in the Crusades, and takes that entire idiom along with it, as was the case in the Bardolino cycle and the triptych of (probably) Abbot Wibald of Stavelot. The presence of Pope Urban V, placed fac-ing the legend of the fi nding of the Cross, suggests a dynamic between Rome and Jerusalem, between Sts Peter and Paul, and the Cross. Francesco del Balzo entertained good contacts with Urban V (1310–1370). He was one of the fi rst popes who desired to return the curia from Avignon to Rome.65 In 1367 he went to Rome to save the city from decay, but his plan failed and he died in Avignon. In 1378, under Urban VI, the actual schism with antipope Clement VII took place. A remarkable detail here is that Urban VI was the archbishop of Bari. He fought the battle for Na-ples and won it from Joan of Naples, who had taken Clement’s side. Further detailed research into the specifi c relationship be-tween these two popes and the Andria crypt and the Del Balzo dukes is necessary.6623. Relic of the Cross, donated between 1299 and 1304,

Barletta, San Sepolcro

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The Franciscans?

That the Tuscan legend of the Cross cycles form a cluster is due to the fact that all the instances arose from Franciscan pa-tronage, either from the fi rst order, or from the compagnie della cro ce which conducted rites under their supervision (Volterra, Empoli). The reasons for the distinctively Franciscan use of the legend of the Cross have already been investigated. In Fran-ciscan tra dition, it is claimed that St Francis received the stig-mata on September 14, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.67 Mo reover, around 1340 the Franciscans had become the custo dians of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.68 The theo-logical me taphors of the Lignum vitae of the Cross also grew in their midst. Taddeo Gaddi painted Christ crucifi ed on the Tree of Life in the refectory of the Santa Croce in Florence (c. 1340), following the Lignum vitae treatise of Bonaventure (1257–1274), in which Christ’s life is symbolically retold according to the fruits of the Tree of Life.69

There was an important Franciscan house in Andria. The San -ta Croce was possibly located in an area of Franciscan infl uence. But for now this remains a secondary argument in our case.

Pilgrimage Circuits

The translation and the presence of a relic interact with the fac-tors mentioned above, and they reinforce each other to the point that the legend is made monumentally visible for the com mu nity. Andria, however, did not have a relic of the Cross, but a less desirable thorn from the crown of thorns.70 In 1237, the crusader king Baldwin II sold Louis XIV of France a piece of the crown that had been kept in Constantinople since 1063. Pie ces of the thorns reached Italy through visits by Charles of Anjou. His daughter, Beatrice, wife to the fi rst duke of Andria, Bernardo, donated a thorn to the cathedral chapter in 1308. The thorn connected the dukes with the Holy Land, with Con stan ti nople and with Par-is. For the translation of the relic from Con stantinople to Paris, an architectural reliquary, the Sainte-Cha pelle, was built in 1239, which has a stained-glass win dow that tells the story of Louis’s transaction in combination with a legend of the fi nding of the Cross71 – the mo ther of all relics found and dispersed by the mother of the fi rst Christian emperor. This way the house of An-jou – with its infl uence in Apulia – suggested continuity with the archetypical inventio and the protection of the Chris tian heritage. The gesture of the Del Balzo family of Andria perhaps also ex-pressed – albeit on a smaller scale – an analogous self-aware-ness. Or did one of the family members, Francesco or Margarita, or even both, go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem?

It is known that many pilgrimage routes – also in the North – came together in Apulia to continue overseas. Whoever chose to travel by way of the harbours on this stretch of the Adriatic coast, usually included rather important places of pilgrimage like the

San Michele in Monte San Gargano and the San Nicola of Bari in his journey.72 The different harbours in southern Italy each had their specialty in terms of destination. A Jewish merchant, Benjamin of Tudela (Narvarra), reported already in the eleventh century that the boats of Trani delivered pilgrims directly on the route to Jerusalem, while those who wished to pass by Greece on their way to the destination of their pilgrimage fared better taking the most southerly harbour of Otranto.73 Trani is located at the coastline near inward Andria. The mercantile view of Je-rusalem evidently goes hand in hand with cultural and socio-religious traffi cking. As the epicentre of pilgrimage around An-dria, there is also the coastal town Barletta with its San Sepolcro church which played a signifi cant role in the area between the twelfth and the fi fteenth centuries because of the presence of the Canons of the Holy Sepulchre. The semi-basilica owned an important relic of the Cross [Fig. 23], which had presumably been donated to the canons by patriarch Randulfus of Grand-ville somewhere between 1299 and 1304.74

In Andria, the legend of the fi nding of the Cross is not found in the royal chapel, nor in a cathedral, nor in a church of San Francesco, nor in a church of San Sepolcro, but rather in the humble tufa stone of a former laura. The murals in Santa Croce probably served as a preview of the destination that lay ahead for those who passed there to behold the thorn. The scenes in the grotto church are a narrative contribution to the reminiscences, artefacts, and souvenirs of Jerusalem and the Cross – in short: like the travelling objects, they are traces of how the Middle Ages imagined the holy places of Jerusalem. Our murals narrate the holy place within liturgical space. This commemorative dynam-ics between image and space has been brought back to a re-markable essence in the intimacy of the grotto, as also the cross was found sub divo, and as the chapel of the fi nding of the Cross in Jerusalem was a subterranean chapel.

Conclusion

The Cross cycle in Andria remained unnoticed for a long time. Nonetheless, this modest cycle bears witness to the continua-tion of the Cross legend tradition at the beginning of the fi fteenth century. At that moment, a strong epicentre had developed in Tuscany, but – as it seems – the themes retained vigour in the periphery. An analysis of the iconographic identity of Andria brought to light two important elements. Firstly, adhesion was found to conventional imagery of an enthroned and threaten-ing Helen which goes back to Carolingian days but which in the fourteenth century had another prototype in a now long lost cycle in the former San’Eufemia of Rome, about which little is known. Comparative material was also found in fourteenth-cen-tury workshops in Southern Italy which themselves probably go back to older models. Secondly, the Andria iconography shows

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a syncretic approach to exemplars: the way the veneration of the Cross is portrayed, shows a coming together of narrative Latin models in static Greek models. This combined form can be found in the twelfth century, but also in later periods in areas where Byzantine artists and workshops remained active, such as Catalonia and Romania. In Andria, this intertwining of cultures is a consequence of the civiltà rupestre.

Andria is located within a fi eld of energy that holds the trans-location and commemoration of the Holy Land. Bari and Barletta preserved important memories of the relic of the Cross and the church of the Holy Sepulchre. The combination of narrative and meditative representation is completely adapted to the function-ality and characteristics of the grotto churches. We know that the Del Balzo family, which had married into the Anjou dynasty, re-

used the extinguishing laure and had it painted. It is also known that they liked to connect their dynastic identity to the Holy Land and the symbolical cherishing of important relics.

Both in space and time, Andria’s Finding of the Cross tra ver-ses borders. My impression is that the iconographic character-istics from the North ‘descended’ into a Greek-Latin melting pot. In the already dying Basilian culture of the cave churches, the iconography was infl uenced by Byzantine schemes while it was drawing its last breaths. For Andria is (not counting the Gargano massif) one of the remote northern corners of the civiltà rupestre. Its Finding of the Cross, however, is the most southern mural cycle to be found in Italy up to this day. The iconography is ut-terly singular in the context of the laure; it may even be atypical for the civiltà rupestre.

1 I visited and studied the site on February 26, 2005. I would like to thank all inhabitants of Andria who helped me in whatever way in my endeav-our. This cycle was only mentioned in a footnote in my monograph on the Cross legend: B. Baert, A Heritage of Holy Wood. The Legend of the True Cross in Text and Image (Cultures, Beliefs and Traditions. Medieval and Early Modern Peoples, 22), Leiden, 2004, p. 406, n. 127. With special thanks to Paul Arblaster and Niels Schalley.

2 B. Molajoli, ‘La crypta di S. Croce in Andria’, Atti e memorie della società Magna Grecia. Bizantina-Medievale, 1, 1934, p. 32, fi g. 2.

3 A. Medea, Gli affreschi delle cripte eremitiche pugliesi, Rome, 1939, pp. 49–58, fi g. 7.

4 M. Milella, ‘Tempo di pellegrini e di pelligrinaggi. Gli oggetti e le imma-gini del culto’, in Andar per mare. Puglia e Mediterraneo tra mito e storia, Bari, 1998, p. 319.

5 M. Basile Bonsante, ‘Dal racconto all’icona. Modelli iconografi ci della “Historia Crucis” tra Cinque- e Seicento’, in Il cammino di Gerusalemme. Atti del II Convegno Internazionale di Studi (Bari–Brindisi–Trani, 18–22 maggio 1999), Bari, 2002, pp. 387–417, fi gs 1–2.

6 When I visited the Andria site and grotto on February 26, 2005, I was able to look into a report drawn up in 1978, addressed to the cultural offi ce of Apulia, in which hypotheses were made about the preservation and restoration of the grotto church; see F. Nicolamarino, A. Lambo and A. Giorgio, Santa Croce in Andria. Notizie storiche e ipotesi di restauro, Andria, 1978. The contents of this report were repeated with alarm eleven years later: De riscoperta dei valori estetici, etici, civili, culturali della re-altà locale cosi ricca di testimonianze e di fermenti da non ignorare e dis-

perdere; M. Benedettelli and M. Milella Lovecchio, Santa Croce in Andria. Salvaguardia, recupero, tutela, Andria, 1989, p. 3. Milella, ‘Tempo di pel-legrini’, pp. 9–17: ‘Gli affreschi’. As far as I know, the grotto church and murals are presently being restored at last.

7 Basic literature: S. Borgehammar, How the Holy Cross Was Found. From Event to Medieval Legend. With an Appendix of Texts, Stockholm, 1991; J. W. Drijvers, Helena Augusta. The Mother of Constantine the Great and the Legend of Her Finding of the True Cross, Leiden–Cologne, 1992.

8 A Syrian original is generally accepted on the basis of the oldest manu-script, dating from the fi fth or sixth century kept in the British Library, Lon-don, Add. 14644 (Drijvers, Helena Augusta, p. 165). Borgehammar, how-ever, proposes a Greek original, which would then later on have been translated into Latin and Syrian. His studies have shown that the Latin ver-sion must have been known in Rome around 500 (Borgehammar, How the Holy Cross Was Found, p. 203).

9 In the meantime, the Byzantine had gone through dramatic upheavals. The Persian king Chosroes II had stolen the Jerusalem relic of the Cross around 620, but the Byzantine emperor Heraclius had recuperated the relic in Ctesiphon, in what is now Iran. A. Pernice, L’imperatore Eraclio. Saggio di storia bizantina, Florence, 1905; A. Frolow, ‘La vraie croix et les expéditions d’Héraclius en Perse’, Revue des études byzantines, 11, 1953, pp. 88–105; O. Volk, ‘Herakleios’, in Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, vol. 5, Freiburg, 1960, cols 237–238; G. Ostrogorsky, Geschichte des byzanti-nischen Staates, Munich, 1963, pp. 73–122; The Cambridge Medieval His-tory, ed. by H. M. Guatkin, vol. 2: The Rise of the Saracens and the Founda-tion of the Western Empire, Cambridge, 1964, pp. 184–302 and 747–758; J. J. Saunders, A History of Medieval Islam, London, 1965; V. Grumel, ‘La

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reposition de la vraie croix à Jérusalem par Héraclius. Le jour et l’année’, Zeitschrift für Byzantinistik, 1, 1966, pp. 139–149; A. N. Stratos, Byzantium in the Seventh Century, 1. 602–634, trans. from Greek by M. Ogilvie-Grant, Amsterdam, 1968; W. Durant, ‘Weltreiche des Glaubens’, in Kulturge-schichte der Menschheit, vol. 5, Munich, 1981; A. H. Bredero, Christen-heid en christendom in de Middeleeuwen. Over de verhouding godsdienst, kerk en samenleving, Kampen, 1986, p. 102; J. Herrin, The Formation of Christendom, Princeton, 1987, pp. 183–219; M. Gil, A History of Palestine 643–1099, trans. from Hebrew by E. Broido, Cambridge, 1992, pp. 65–74. As Adam was dying, he sent his third son, Seth, to paradise to fi nd sol-ace. There, Seth received three twigs of the paradise tree from the angel Michael. Once home, he planted the twigs on his father’s grave, Adam having died in the meantime. The twigs grow into a marvellous tree which stands the test of time to the days of Solomon, who takes it down for the construction of the Temple. But the wood keeps changing measure-ments, as if it refuses to adapt itself to the Temple. Neglected, the wood ends up in the Cedron River. This was precisely where Solomon was to meet the queen of Sheba, who prophesied that the wood would one day bear the Messiah who would be killed by the Jews. Filled with distrust, Salomon throws the wood into a pool of water, the Piscina Probatica. Towards the time of Christ’s passion, however, the wood resurfaced, and the Jews used it to make a cross. After this, the Finding of the Cross fol-lows. See: S. J. Reno, ‘The Sacred Tree as an Early Christian Literary Symbol. A Phenomenological Study’, Forschungen zur Anthropologie und Religionsgeschichte, 4, Saarbrücken, 1978, passim. There is no space here to go into all aspects of the complex literary-historical emer-gence of the legend, on which see W. Meyer, ‘Die Geschichte des Kreuz-holzes vor Christus’, Abhandlungen der philosophisch-philologischen Classe der königlich bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 16, 2, Munich, 1882; A. R. Miller, German and Dutch Versions of the Legend of the Wood of the Cross. A Descriptive and Analytical Catalogue, 2 vols, PhD. diss., Oxford, 1992; A. M. L. Prangsma-Hajenius, La légende du Bois de la Croix dans la littérature française médiévale, PhD. diss., Assen, 1995.

10 Jacobi a Voragine legenda aurea. Vulgo historia lombardica dicta, ed. by J. G. Th. Graesse, Osnabrück, 1969, p. 303; Jacobus de Voragine. The Gol-den Legend. Readings on the Saints, ed. and trans. by W. G. Ryan, 2 vols, New York, 1995, vol. 2, pp. 277–284; G. P. Maggioni, F. Stella and Iacopo da Varazze, Legenda Aurea con le miniature dal codice Ambrosiano C 240 inf, 2 vols, Florence, 2007, vol. 1, pp. 513–525 (Helen) and vol. 2, pp. 1036–1047 (Heraclius); L. van Tongeren, Exaltation of the Cross. Toward the Ori-gins of the Feast of the Cross and the Meaning of the Cross in Early Me-dieval Liturgy, Louvain, 2000.

11 For diagrams and images, see: Molajoli,‘La crypta di S. Croce’, passim; Nicolamarino, Lambo and Giorgio, Santa Croce in Andria , diagram IV.

12 For the history of the site, see Nicolamarino, Lambo and Giorgio, Santa Croce in Andria, passim.

13 For the literary background of the Cross legend, see: Borgehammar, How the Holy Cross Was Found; Drijvers, Helena Augusta; the Cross legend was spread by the Legenda Aurea in the Middle Ages: Graesse, Jacobi a Voragine legenda aurea, p. 303; Ryan, Jacobus de Voragine, vol. 2, pp. 277–284.

14 For the Trinity, see: A. Heimann, ‘Trinitas Creator Mundi’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 2, 1938–1939, pp. 48–49.

15 See note 6. Nicolamarino, Lambo and Giorgio, Santa Croce in Andria, p. 67; Benedettelli, Milella and Lovecchio, Santa Croce in Andria. Sal-vaguardia, pp. 9–17.

16 J. Osborne, ‘Lost Roman Images of Pope Urban V (1362–1370)’, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 1, 1991, pp. 20–32.

17 Nicolamarino, Lambo and Giorgio, Santa Croce in Andria, p. 67; Bene-dettelli, Milella and Lovecchio, Santa Croce in Andria. Salvaguardia, pp. 9–17.

18 Molajoli, ‘La crypta di S. Croce’, pp. 25–27. Nicolamarino, Lambo and Giorgio, Santa Croce in Andria, p. 67; Benedettelli, Milella and Lovec-chio, Santa Croce in Andria. Salvaguardia, pp. 9–17.

19 F. Bologna, I pittori alla Corte Angioina di Napoli 1266–1414 e un riesame dell’arte nell’età federiciana (Saggi e studi di storia dell’arte, 2), Rome, 1969, p. 374.

20 Correspondence with Prof. Dr. Andrea De Marchi, Università degli Studi di Udine, of 6 June 2005.

21 A will of Alberto di Lapo degli Alberti of 1348 (during the plague epi-demic) shows the earliest sure evidence of the contacts between the family and the Franciscan friary (Florence, Archivio di Stato, Diplomatico S. Croce); B. Cole, Agnolo Gaddi, Oxford, 1977, p. 79; R. Salvini, ‘Agnolo Gaddi’, in Santa Croce, Florence, 1989, pp. 185–215; S. Pfl eger, Eine Le-gende und ihre Erzählformen. Studien zur Rezeption der Kreuzlegenden in der italienischen Monumentalmalerei des Tre- und Quattrocento (Eu-ropäische Hochschulschriften 18, Kunstgeschichte, 214), Frankfurt–Vi-enna, 1994, pp. 53–72 and 138, n. 2. See also: M. G. Rosito, Santa Croce nel solco della storia, Florence, 1996; M. Aronberg Lavin, The Place of Nar-rative. Mural Decoration in Italian Churches, 431–1600, Chicago–London, 1990, pp. 117–118. The literature is plentiful. A good place to start is: The Cambridge Companion to Piero della Francesca, ed. by J. M. Wood, Cambridge, 2002; an overview of the interpretations of the cycle since the twentieth century can be found in J. Beck, ‘Piero della Francesca at San Francesco in Arezzo. An Art-Historical Peregrination’, Artibus et His-toriae, 47, 2003, pp. 51–80.

22 A. Ladis, ‘Un’ ordinazione per disegni dal ciclo della vera croce di Agnoli Gaddi a Firenze’, Rivista d’arte, 41, 1989, pp. 153–158: ‘E piu spendemo, dati a Giovanni di Chaccia che ando a Fiorenza a ritrare le storie delle croce, lire V contanti ebe da Lando di Giovanni di Lando’ (p. 155).

23 For a clear overview of the legacy of this elaborately described cycle, see: Beck, ‘Piero della Francesca’; L. Schneider, ‘The Iconography of Piero della Francesca’s Frescoes Illustrating the Legend of the True Cross in the Church of San Francesco in Arezzo’, The Art Quarterly, 32, 1969, pp. 23–48; C. Ginzburg, Enquête sur Piero della Francesca. Le Baptême, le cycle d’Arezzo, la Flagellation d’Urbino, Paris, 1981, pp. 33–63; Piero della Francesca and His Legacy, ed. by M. Aronberg Lavin (Studies in the His-tory of Art, 48), Hanover–London, 1995; M. Aronberg Lavin, Piero della Francesca. San Francesco, Arezzo, New York, 1994.

24 Frameless coloured pen drawings, Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm. 22053, fols 1–20; drawings on: fols: 2r, 3v, 6v, 7v, 9v, 10r, 10v, 12v, 13r, 14v, 15v, 16r, 16v, 17v, 18v, 19r, 20r; fol. 8 is missing, but there are also un-numbered pages missing between fols 2 and 3; fols 4 and 5 are supposed to follow fol. 7: thus, 1, 2, (?), 3, 6, 7, 4, 5, (8?), 9, and so on. See A. von Eckardt (facsimile) and C. von Kraus (intro.), Die Handschriften des Wesso-brunner Gebets, Munich, 1922, p. 5; K. Bierbrauer, Die vorkarolingischen und karolingischen Handschriften der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek, Wies-baden, 1990, pp. 83–84, cat. no. 155, fi gs 219–336; M. Restle, ‘En tutō i nika – In hoc signo vincis. Ein Beitrag zur Illustration des Clm 22053’, in Per assiduum studium scientiae adipisci margaritam. Festgabe für Ursula Nil-gen zum 65. Geburtstag, Sankt Ottilien, 1997, pp. 27–43.

25 Bibliotheca Capitulare, ms. 165, fol. 2r; 224 fols, 27 × 19 cm; Ch. Walter, ‘Les dessins carolingiens dans un manuscrit de Verceil’, Cahiers arché olo-giques, 18, 1968, pp. 99–107 (p. 99, n. 2); A. Sorelli, Inventari dei manu-scritti delle bibliotheche d’Italia, 19–21, Florence, 1923, p. 117, no. 165;

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C. Chazelle, ‘Archbishops Ebo and Hincmar of Reims and the Utrecht Psalter’, Speculum, 72, 1997, p. 1060; 2r: the fi nding of the Cross; 2v: the Council of Nicaea; 3r: Saints Peter and Paul; 3v and 4r: the First Council of Constantinople; 4v: the Council of Ephesus (fi rst volume to here), and 5r: Christ in Majesty with Helen and Constantine (second volume).

26 Also featuring scenes of the Apocalypse; Y. Christe, ‘Le cycle inédit de l’invention de la croix à S. Severo de Bardolino’, Académie des inscrip-tions et belles-lettres. Comptes rendus des séances de l’année 1978, janvier–mars, Paris, 1978, pp. 78–109.

27 M. Bacci, ‘The Berardenga Antependium and the “Passio ymaginis” Of-fi ce’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 61, 1998, pp. 1–16; B. Baert, ‘The retable of the Master of Tressa (Siena, 1215). Iconography and Function’, Pantheon, 57, 1999, pp. 14–21.

28 The retable was not on display when I visited the Museo del Duomo on July 11, 1995; P. Bacci, Fonti e commenti per la storia dell’arte senese. Di pinti e sculture in Siena nel suo contrado ed altrove, [s.l. s.d.], pp. 195–229, fi gs 9–17, in my view presented out of order; Pfl eger, Eine Legende und ihre Erzählformen, fi gs 78–80.

29 For this problem see B. Baert, ‘The legend of the True Cross between North and South. Suggestions and Nuances for the Current Research’, Annali dell’Università di Ferrara, 1, 2004, pp. 123–150.

30 The monopoly position of the Tuscan model in studies of the legend of the Cross is discussed in my article: Baert, ‘The legend of the True Cross’.

31 Rome, Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica, Cod. Vat. Ross. lat. 1168, fols 7–13; H. Tietze, Die illuminierten Handschriften der Rossiana in Wien–Lainz, Leip zig, 1911, pp. 163–164; Pfl eger, Eine Legende und ihre Erzählfor-men, pp. 93–94.

32 Francesco Del Sodo, Compendio delle Chiese con le loro fondationi (ma-nuscript), Florence, c. 1575, f. 102, is to be found in the Codex Vallicel-liano; G. Vasi, ‘Chiesa e Monastero dello Spirito Santo, delle Canoni-chesse Lateranesi’, in Piante e vedute di Roma e del Lazio, Milan, 1939; P. Spezi, Bibliografi e metodica-analitica delle Chiese di Roma, Rome, 1928; F. Lombardi, Roma. Le chiese scomparse. La memoria storica della città, Rome, 1998, p. 61.

33 Turin, Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria, ms. I.II.17, fols 203v–205. H. Buchthal, ‘Early Fourteenth-Century Illuminations from Palermo’, Dum-barton Oaks Papers, 20, 1966, pp. 105–118; idem, ‘Notes on a Sicilian Ma nuscript of the Early Fourteenth Century’, in Essays in the History of Art Presented to Rudolf Wittkower, London, 1967, pp. 36–39; idem, ‘Early Fourteenth-Century Illuminations from Palermo’, in Art of the Mediterra-nean World, A.D. 100 to 1400 (Art History Series, 5), Washington, 1983, pp. 105–125.

34 This argumentation connects to the discussions of the circulation of manuscripts across the far South, from Sicily to Apulia, see C. D. Fonseca, La civiltà rupestre medioevali nel mezzogiorno d’Italia. Ricerche e pr o ble-mi, in Atti del primo convegno internazionale di studi (Mottola – Casalrot -to 29 settembre – 3 ottobre 1971), ed. by idem, Genoa, 1975, pp. 77; A. Guillou, ‘Il monachesimo Greco in Italia meridionale e in Sicilia nel Medioevo’, in L’eremitismo in Occidenti nei secoli XI e XII, Milan, 1965, p. 379, and in the same book a comment on p. 434, where this upward movement of books and manuscripts that served as exemplars is de-scribed from the thirteenth century, under the infl uence of Norman Lati-nization.

35 Prayer book of Joan of Naples, 1346–1362, Vienna, Österreichische Na-tionalbibliothek, cod. 1912, fol. 218.

36 Dominican missal, Milan, c. 1400, The Hague, Rijksmuseum Meerman-no-Westreenianum, ms. 10 A 16, fol. 214v.

37 The testimony of pilgrim Egeria, between 381–384, is the earliest evi-dence of an eight-day-long feast in memory of the consecration of the Holy Sepulchre complex in 335, which according to her was celebrated together with the discovery of the Cross of Christ (Itinerarium Aetheriae, p. 48). From the seventh century onwards, this celebration of Helen and the consecration was supplemented with the commemoration of the Cross relic restitution of Heraclius. In the Gelasian calendar of the Carol-ingians, this double commemoration is split up between Heraclius on Sep-tember 14 and Helen on May 3. This last date was adopted from an older Gaulish custom. The liturgical texts stayed partly interchangeable and de-scribed the Cross wood as lignum vitae or as vexillum in battle. Hymns were sung about the cross relic as tropaion and apocalyptic victory sign. On the liturgical history, see: Egeria (382–386), Itinerarium Aetheriae, p. 48; J. Wilkinson, Egeria’s Travels to the Holy Land, Jerusalem–Warminster, 1971–1981, pp. 136–137; Le sacramentaire gélasien (Vaticanus Reginen-sis 316). Sacramentaire presbytérial en usage dans les titres romains au VIIe siècle, ed. by A. Chavasse (Bibliothèque de Théologie, série, 4, 1), Turnhout, 1958, pp. 350–364.

38 Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Sachau 225, fol. 43; W. Voelkle, The Iconography of the Legend of the Finding of the True Cross in Mosan Art of the Last Half of the Twelfth Century, unpublished master thesis, New York, 1965, p. 67 (I was not able to consult this study); A. Baumstark, ‘Konstantiniana aus sy-rischer Kunst und Liturgie’, in Konstantin der Grosse und seine Zeit. Fest-schrift De Waal (Supplement Römischen Quartalschriften, 19), Freiburg, 1913, pp. 218–245, fi g. VII, 1.

39 Although we might assume there to have been older examples, now lost; Walter, ‘Les dessins carolingiens’, p. 107: Agobardus, bishop of Lyon (814–840), refers to the type Liber de imaginibus sanctorum, CXXXII, PL 104, p. 225. E. Kirschbaum, ‘Konstantin und Helena’, in Lexikon der christlichen Ikonographie, vol. 7, Rome–Vienna, 1974, cols 336–337: the type is pre sent from the tenth century onwards in the painted grotto churches of Cappa-docia. The motif also appears in the Greek menologia (calendars of saints) on May 21, from the eleventh century illustrated after the model of the Menologion of Basil II (c. 1000, Vat. gr. 1613); N. Patterson Sevcenko, ‘Me-no logion’, and eadem, ‘Menologion of Basil II’, in The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, Oxford, 1991, pp. 1341 and 1341–1342. From the thirteenth cen-tury onwards, the motif is ever present in the iconographic programmes of Byzantine churches.

40 S. Petrides and A. E. Rientjes, ‘Vraag en antwoord. Byzantijns bronsreliëf’, Het Gildeboek, 18, 4, 1935, p. 141; C. M. Kaufmann, ‘Konstantin und He-lena auf einem griechischen Hostienstempel’, Oriens Christianus. Neue Serie, 4, 1915, pp. 85–87; Baumstark, ‘Konstantiniana’, pp. 218–245, and J. Georg, ‘Konstantin der Grosse und die hl. Helena in der Kunst des christlichen Orients’, in Konstantin der Grosse und seine Zeit, op. cit., pp. 255–258.

41 G. Cames, Byzance et la peinture Romane de Germanie, Paris, 1966, fi g. 163. M. Restle, Die Byzantinische Wandmalerei in Kleinasien, 2 vols, Reck-linghausen, 1967, vol. 2: no. XXIII (with fi g.): chapel 28, mural paintings on the south wall, abutting the main choir. Helen stands to the left here, Con-stantine to the right. The cross bears a titulus and a base, has a rough surface, suggesting it comes from the tree of life.

42 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Cod. grec. 510, c. 880; K. Weitz-mann, ‘Illustration for the Chronicles Sozomenos, Theoderet and Malalas’, Byzantion, 16, 1, 1942–1943, pp. 87–134; S. Der Nerssessian, ‘The Illustra-tions of the Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus Paris Gr. 510. A Study of the

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Connections Between Text and Images’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 16, 1962, p. 197, fi g. 15; L. Brubaker, The Illustrated Copy of the ‘Homilies’ of Gregory of Nazianzus in Paris (Bibliothèque Nationale, Cod. Gr. 510), PhD diss., Baltimore, 1983.

43 Drawing, Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, series nova 2700, fol. 338; Voelkle, The Iconography of the Legend, fi g. 52; O. Mazal and F. Unterkircher, Katalog der abendländischen Handschriften der Österreich-ischen Nationalbibliothek. Series Nova, 2,1, Vienna, 1963, pp. 355–359.

44 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, open: 48,4 × 66 cm; wooden core with gilt brass, interrupted by silver pilasters with vernis brun (these pilasters are nineteenth-century copies). Voelkle, The Iconography of the Legend, p. 37; M.-M. Gauthier, Emaux du moyen âge occidental, Freiburg, 1972, p. 125, pl. 81; The Stavelot Triptych. Mosan Art and the Legend of the True Cross, ed. by W. Voelkle, exh. cat. Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, 1980; J. Lafontaine-Dosogne, ‘L’art byzantin en Belgique en relation avec les croisades’, Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Oudheidkunde en Kunstgeschie-denis, 56, 1987, p. 17 and fi g. 2; N. Stratford, Catalogue of Medieval Enam-els in the British Museum, vol. 2: Northern Romanesque Enamel, London, 1993, pls 50–52; A. Lemeunier, Le vernis brun dans l’orfèvrerie du Moyen Âge occidental, spécialement dans l’archévéché de Cologne, PhD diss., Liège, 1993; M. L. De Kreek, De kerkschat van het Onze-Lieve-Vrouweka-pittel te Maastricht (Clavis. Kunsthistorische monografi eën, 14), Utrecht, 1994, p. 89; K. McKay-Holbert, Mosan Reliquary Triptychs and the Cult of the True Cross in the Twelfth Century, PhD diss., Yale University, 1995, pp. 7–71. Provenance: in 1792, the abbot of Stavelot, Célestin Thys († 1796), sold the triptych to the Walz family in Hanau, where it was safeguarded from French secularisation. In 1909, the triptych was put on sale in Lon-don by the Durlacher Brothers dealership. In 1910, it was bought by John Pierpont Morgan for the British Museum in London; J. Stiennon and J. Deckers, Wibald, abbé de Stavelot-Malmédy et de Corvey (1130–1158), exh. cat., Stavelot, 1982, p. 68. I am indebted to Professor Dr. Jos Koldeweij (Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen) and Dr. Albert Lemeunier (Musée d’Art Religieux et d’Art Mosan de Liège) for their help with this part of my research.

45 Stuttgart, Landesbibliothek, Cod. Hist. Fol. 415, fol. 39; S. von Borries-Schul ten, H. Spilling, Die romanischen Handschriften der Württembergi -s chen Landesbibliothek Stuttgart, vol. 1: Provenienz Zwiefalten, Stuttgart, 1987, cat. no. 65, fol. 39r, fi g. 249; S. von Borries-Schulten, ‘Zur romani-schen Buchmalerei in Zwiefalten. Zwei Illustrationsfolgen zu den Heiligen-festen des Jahres und ihre Vorlagen’, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 1, 1989, pp. 445–471.

46 F. Saxl, English Sculptures of the Twelfth Century, publ. by H. Swarzenski, London, 1954, pp. 67–68, pls 96–98; J. T. Lang, ‘The St. Helena-Cross, Church Kelloë, Co. Durham’, Archaeologia Aeliana, 5, 1977, pp. 105–119; G. Zarnecki, ‘Reliquary Cross’, in English Romanesque Art 1066–1200, exh. cat., London, 1984, pp. 208–209; B. Baert, ‘In Hoc Vinces. Iconog-raphy of the Stone Cross in the Parish Church of Kelloe (Durham, c.1200)’, in Archaeological and Historical Aspects of West-European Societies. Album amicorum André van Doorselaer (Acta Archaeologica Lovanien-sia Monographiae, 8), Louvain, 1995, pp. 341–362.

47 C. Popa, Christian Art in Romania, vol. 3: The Fourteenth Century, Bucha-rest, 1983, p. 128, no. 50; V. Vatasianu, Istoria artei feudale in tarile ro mi-ne, vol. 1: Arta in perioada de dezvoltare a feudalismului, [s.l.] 1959, p. 401, fi g. 358; I. D. Stefanescu, La peinture religieuse en Valachie et en Transylvanie depuis les origines jusqu’au XIXe siècle, Paris, 1932, pp. 223–239, and a diagram of all scenes, pp. 226–227.

48 W. W. S. Cook, La pintura mural romanica en Cataluña, Madrid, 1956, fi g. 39. 49 S. Di Sciascio, ‘Reliquie e reliquiari dai Luoghi Santi in Puglia: pro dotti

cro ciati ed imitazioni locali’, in Il cammino di Gerusalemme, op. cit., p. 334,

fi g. 9; eadem, Reliquie e reliquiari in Puglia fra IX e XV secolo, Galati-na, 2009, pp. 57–99; V. Pace, ‘Staurotheken und andere Reliquiare in Rom und in Süditalien (bis ca. 1300). Ein erster Versuch eines Ge-samtüberblicks’, in Das Heilige sichtbar machen. Domschätze in Ver-gangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft, ed. U. Wendland, Regensburg, 2010, pp. 137–160.

50 For an impressive monograph on the importation of relics of the Cross from the East to the West, see: H. A. Klein, Byzanz, der Westen, und das ‘wahre’ Kreuz, Wiesbaden, 2004.

51 N. Lavermicocca, I sentieri delle grotte dipinte, Bari, 2001, p. 56. 52 Nicolamarino, Lambo and Giorgio, Santa Croce in Andria, 1978, p. 6.

A. Guillou, ‘La seconda colonizzazione bizantina nell’ Italia meridionale’, in La civiltà rupestre, op. cit., pp. 27–44; A. Chionna, ‘Gli insediamenti rupestri della Puglia’, in ibidem, pp. 129–151; Guillou, ‘Il monachesimo Greco’, pp. 355–379; A. Pertusi, ‘Aspetti organizzativi e culturali dell’am-biente monacale Greco dell’Italia meridionale’, in La civiltà rupestre, op. cit., pp. 382–434.

53 A. Venditti, Architettura bizantina dell’Italia meridionale, Naples, 1967, pp. 326–338.

54 La civiltà rupestre, op. cit., p. 80. 55 Ibidem. 56 M. Viterbo, ‘Aragona, Orsini del Balzo e Acquaviva d’Aragona nella con-

tea di conversano’, in Congresso internationale di studi sull’età ara go-nese, Bari, 1968, pp. 331–368; F. Maria D’Agnelli, ‘I del Balzo ad Andria (1308–1487). Una ricognizione territoriale’, I beni culturali. Tutela e valori-zzazione, 7, 1999, pp. 50–54.

57 M. Nugent, Affreschi del trecento nella Cripta di San Francesco a Irsina, Bergamo, 1933.

58 Nicolamarino, Lambo and Giorgio, Santa Croce in Andria, 1978, pp. 13–18. 59 B. Baert, ‘The Wall Paintings in the Campanile of the Church of St. Nicola

in Lanciano (c. 1330–1400). Reading an Unknown Legend of the Cross in the Abruzzi, Italy’, Iconographica, 2, 1, 2003, pp. 108–125.

60 B. Baert, ‘La cappella Farfense in Montegiorgio. Una leggende della vera croce nelle Marche (c. 1425)’, Arte cristiana, 804, 2001, pp. 219–233.

61 ‘Gli Ebrei, la Puglia e il mare’, in Andar per mare, op. cit., pp. 307–314. 62 See for this: B. Blumenkranz, Le juif médiéval au miroir de l’art chrétien,

Paris, 1966; S. Linton, Images of Intolerance. The Representation of Jews and Judaism in the Bible moralisée, Berkeley, 1999.

63 Imagining the Self, Imagining the Other. Visual Representations and Jew-ish-Christian Dynamics in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period, ed. by E. Frojmovic (Cultures, Beliefs and Traditions, 15), Leiden, 2002.

64 A. Sohn, ‘Bilder als Zeichen der Herrschaft. Die Silvesterkapelle in SS. Quattro Coronati (Rom)’, Archivum Historiae Pontifi cae, 35, 1997, pp. 7–47.

65 G. Kaster, ‘Urban V’, in Lexikon der christlichen Ikonographie, vol. 8, col. 516.

66 M. Paone, ‘Arte e cultura alla corte di Giovanni Antonio del Balzo Orsini’, in Studi di storia pugliese in onore di Giuseppe Chiarelli, [s.l.] 1973, does not include the Andria site.

67 Bonaventura, Legenda Major (1260–1263): Opera omnia, Quaracchi, 1882, XIII, 3; Fioretti, thirteenth century: I Fioretti di San Francesco, ed. by G. Davico Bonino, Turin, 1974, pp. 176 and 180.

68 G. Odoardi, ‘La custodia di Terra Santa nel VI centenario della sui costituzione’, Miscellanea francescana, 43, 1943, pp. 217–256; A. Der-bes, Picturing the Passion in Late Medieval Italy, Cambridge, 1996.

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69 A. C. Eesmeijer, L’albero della vita di Taddeo Gaddi, Florence, 1985; D. Blu me, Wandmalerei als Ordenspropaganda. Bildprogramme im Cho r-be reich franziskanischer Konvente Italiens bis zur Mitte des 14. Ja h r hun-derts (Heidelberger kunstgeschichtliche Abhandlungen, n.F., 17), Worms, 1983, pp. 90–91. Bonaventure. The Soul’s Journey into God. The Tree of Life. The Life of St. Francis, transl. and intro. by E. Cousins, New York–Toron to, 1978, pp. 119–175. A good study of the Tree of Life and the Francis cans is that by H. M. Thomas, Franziskaner Geschichtsvision und euro pä ische Bildentfaltung, Wiesbaden, 1989. Also see: J. G. Bougerol, In t roduc tion to the Works of Bonaventure, New York–Rome, 1964, pp. 159–160.

70 M. Loconsole, La corona di spine di Cristo. Storia e mistero, Siena, 2005.

71 M. Aubert, L. Grodecki, J. Lafond and J. Verrier, Les vitraux de Notre-Dame et de la Sainte-Chapelle de Paris (Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi. France, 1), Paris, 1959, pp. 295–309, pl. 86; M. Dillange, De Sainte-Chapelle, [s.l.] 1990.

72 P. Corsi, ‘Sulle tracce dei pellegrini in Terra di Puglia’, in Il cammino di Gerusalemme, op. cit., pp. 51–70.

73 Ibidem, pp. 51–70. 74 V. Pace, ‘Echi della terrasanta. Barletta e l’oriente crociato’, in Fra Ro -

ma e Gerusalemme nel medioevo. Paesaggi umani ed ambientali del pellegrinaggio meridionale (Atti del congresso internazionale di studi), vol. 2, Salerno, 2005, pp. 393–408; Di Sciascio, ‘Reliquie e reliquiari’, pp. 327–342.

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Barbara Baert The Legend of the True Cross Italy (ﬁ ... · Andria is located to the right of the side aisle on a trapezoid ground plan.11 The ground plan owes its ca pr i cio us