Fieschi Morgan Staurotheke

The Fieschi Morgan Staurotheke is a small reliquary designed to hold a relic of the true cross, it is 1 1/16 x 4 1/16 x 2 13/16 inches (2.7 x 10.3 x 7.1 cm) overall with lid.

[1] Both dates hover around the second wave of Byzantine Iconoclasm from 814 to 842, allowing this piece to become a lens into the post iconoclastic art.

The front lid depicts Christ on the cross wearing a colobium (sleeveless tunic) flanked by Mary and Saint John the Theologian.

Underneath the lid the surface is divided into four parts and created using niello, the top left, the Annunciation; top right, the Nativity and bathing of Jesus; bottom left, the Crucifixion (which mimics the front lid); and the bottom right, the Anastasis (Christ descent into Hell) scene pulling Adam and Eve out of Hell.

[7] The primary colors of the reliquary enamel are emerald green, blue, maroon, gold, and white.

The Fieschi Morgan Staurotheke is an object that offers one perspective of art created after the decline in religious crafts.

Rome continued to create and explore art techniques and played a role reeducating Byzantine artists.

Rome is a source for enamel art as the colors used in the Fieschi Morgan Staurotheke were in production there and the city was a place of refuge for iconophiles.

Pope Innocent IV presented the relic to his new basilica, San Salvatore di Lavagna, in 1245 (where it still resides) and the box became an heirloom of the Fieschi Family.