Treasure of the Holy Crosses

[5] The first known piece of the treasure to be added to the three originals (Cross of the Field, Illustrious Relic and staurotheke) is the small chest made in the first half of the fifteenth century to contain some secondary objects, almost all of which have been lost.

[22][23][24] The work, despite the deadline, did not have to be executed immediately, or else it would take a long time: on June 15, 1486, the Council resolved to recover the money with which to pay Bernardino through the sale of the silverware donated by Domenico de Dominici to the factory of the Duomo.

[32] The parish priest Giovanni Battista Lurani Cernuschi, accompanied by popular enthusiasm, requested its safekeeping, for which he offered to have a major new altar built in the church where the relic could be placed.

[38] However, as early as 1849, it was the president of the Company of Custodians, Antonio Valotti, who dropped the whole issue, as recorded in a letter between him and Clerici, postponing it "to better times"[37] given the turbulent political situation of the Italian wars of independence.

On April 22, 1917, in the midst of World War I, the Illustrious Relic was displayed on the high altar of the New Cathedral in the presence of Bishop Giacinto Gaggia and almost all the citizens to implore divine protection over the city and the soldiers at the front.

[41] On November 10 of the same year, the treasure was extracted extraordinarily to be protected from any damage resulting from the war: the Illustrious Relic was removed from the reliquary case and given to Giacinto Gaggia, while the rest went into the custody of Superintendent Ettore Modigliani and concealed.

The staurotheke underwent the most substantial intervention: the casket had many dents, several parts of silver foil had become detached, and the Crucifixion on the lid was corroded by a very powerful acidic agent, poured at an unspecified time and for unknown reasons.

Both the cross and the two lateral figures are placed atop pyramidal mounds, and the central one, from which the crucifix rises, has at its base the face of a man with closed eyes with three pieces of wood embedded in his head.

[22] The work, fully cast, rests on eight gold spheres held by dolphin mouths descending from above, placed in the center of the concave sides of the octagonal mixtilinear base adorned with foliate motifs and astragal and beaded moldings.

On this base is set the first octagonal elevation, framed at the corners by rich lesenes of Corinthian order very much projected and ornamented with candelabra, on the top of which rise flower-shaped pinnacles worked with chisel.

Within the niches, which are slightly concave and enameled in very dark green, stand out silver half-length figures in full casting: six are identifiable as prophets since they bear cartouches, while two depict old men with beards and a large open volume in their hands, possibly Apostles.

[31][72] In Mondella's reliquary, on the contrary, the decorative element appears to be prevalent: the architectural conception decays to be replaced by a uniquely pictorial vision, a rich refined preciosity, moreover perfect from the technical side.

The use of precious gems (twenty-eight diamonds, sixteen pearls, and four rubies) is also deployed in the reliquary, and the piece is made entirely of pure gold, as opposed to the gilded silver of the pedestal.

At the four ends of the arms are, also strongly embossed, the other key figures in the Crucifixion of Jesus, similarly to the staurotheke: Mary on the left, St. John on the right with the book of the Gospels at his chest, and the Sun and Moon at the top, in this case personified in two faces among which, consistently, only the first is gilded.

[78] Paolo Guerrini, in 1924, returned to nineteenth-century proposals,[79] while starting with Antonio Morassi's 1939 commentary,[80] critics settled on the shared conclusion that the cross is a Lombard work of the twelfth century.

[22] The chest is made entirely of ordinary wood covered with green velvet, which in turn is banded with vertical and horizontal strips of a metal alloy of gold, silver, and copper.

A small red velvet purse with gold embroidery made in the second half of the sixteenth century by Bishop Gianfrancesco Morosini to hold the coin and medal mentioned earlier is preserved in the chest.

[81] Beneath the purse is a small silver box with a lid, simple and plain, containing the screw that closed the top of Bernardino delle Croci's pedestal once the Illustrious Relic had been removed, before Mondella's reliquary was affixed.

[43] Lost in 1917 were the three silver-plated wooden sticks that, mounted together, made up the pole of the Field Cross: the November 1, 1917 minutes of the Company of Custodians, which on that day extraordinarily opened the treasure to hide it and secure it from the war, recorded their absence, meaning that they were left out after the last display, which took place on April 22 of that year.

[6] Also lost, relocated or no longer traceable are the various reliquaries and other liturgical objects, such as ciboria, tabernacles and small chests, mentioned in the inventory of the contents of a cabinet in the chapel compiled by Benettino Calino in 1623.

[91] What is reported in his paper seems to completely support Baitelli's note: There lies over their [the two patrons'] feet, and over part of their legs, a very raised banner, which shows it to have been a cloth of some size, broken down throughout by antiquity.

The first barrier is represented by the Chapel of the Holy Crosses itself where it is kept, access to which is protected by a thick golden grating dating back to the 1500s, flanked in the late 20th century by a laser anti-theft device.

The project, entrusted to Bernardino da Martinengo, a master mason already at work in the cathedral for the erection of the new choir,[51] was immediately materialized, and by the early sixteenth century the treasure could be transferred from the sacristy, where it was kept, to the new chapel built for the purpose.

[95] After a primitive decorative cycle due to Floriano Ferramola,[27] the chapel underwent its first stylistic updates in the second half of the sixteenth century at the hands of Giovanni Maria Piantavigna, although it is unclear to what extent.

[75] The oldest archival document referring to the treasury, dating from the mid-13th century and already discussed, also contains the earliest mention of a "sacrarum,"[1] a trunk or chest, openable by means of numerous keys, in which the treasure was kept.

[94] The earliest historical document testifying to the existence of a lay company with the objective of guarding the treasure is a resolution of the municipality of Brescia dated March 3, 1520, in which the council accepted a request made by Mattia Ugoni, bishop of Famagusta and suffragan of the bishop of Brescia Paolo Zane, in which the prelate asked that a grant of one hundred liras be granted for the benefit of a confraternity described as recently established "in honor" of the treasure of the Holy Crosses.

[43][62][107] Over the centuries, the company carried out and supported all the operations of managing, safeguarding, administering and defending the treasure, maintaining its integrity and taking care of its upkeep, as well as the chapel of the Holy Crosses in which it was and still is kept.

After the nineteenth-century secularization and the reduction, to the point of disappearance, of most of the activities that made the administration of the confraternity necessary and gave a purpose to its existence (processions, suffragan masses, chapel beautification, purchase and sale of movable property, and so on), the Company of Custodians soon lapsed into a role of pure representation.

[109] Already mentioned is also the different display methodology reserved for the reliquary of the Holy Thorns and the Cross of Bishop Zane: the two artifacts are in fact the exclusive responsibility of the diocese and are kept in a separate compartment of the safe, for the opening of which the use of the key guarded by the mayor is not necessary.

Gaetano Panazza wrote in 2001, "Precisely because of this multiplicity of its values, it is regrettable to note that it is one of the few treasures that are still not accessible, except with great difficulty and for a very short time, to the veneration of the faithful, to the admiration of scholars.