Opistograph cross

NIn 1876, the Roman collector Costantino Corvisieri donated the artwork in question to the former Museo Artistico-Industriale in Rome. In the inventory of 1884, it was listed as a “limestone cross with painted bas-reliefs, Umbrian School, fourteenth century” (Borghini, Cavallo 2011). The traces of paint that were visible at the time have since disappeared. Following the closure of the institute, the piece was transferred to the National Museum of Palazzo Venezia on September 30, 1959. The work was then placed into storage and largely overlooked by critics until Caglioti’s publication in 1998, which attributed it to the Florentine sculptor Andrea Guardi (active from 1428, disappeared post-1476), dating it to approximately the mid-1440s.
A fairly recent hypothesis posits that the cross should be regarded as one of the products created during the initial period of the artist’s career in the Marches region, approximately around the mid-1430s (Donati 2015). Notably, a terracotta figured cross (Ascoli Piceno, Diocesan Museum), from the ruins of the church of San Savino di Lisciano near Ascoli, bears an almost complete resemblance to the front of the work located in Palazzo Venezia. This is likely an autographed replica of the original work and not a preparatory model for it, as suggested by Picciolo and Cipollini (2014). Additionally, on April 20, 1436, the Municipality of Ancona paid “magistro Gasparro taglapreta and magistro Andree de Florentia” for the provision of six stones to be used as coats of arms (Mazzalupi 2008). The artist’s presence in the city at that time, which is almost certainly linked to the creation of the tomb of Bishop Simone Vigilanti in the church of San Francesco alle Scale (currently, only the slab with the inscription remains in the City Museum), may bolster the hypothesis that the cross of Palazzo Venezia was produced during those years. From a stylistic perspective, the figures on the cross do not yet demonstrate the more vigorous ductus seen in the Crucifix of the sepulchre of San Severino (Naples, San Giovanni a Carbonara), which was created approximately a decade later. Conversely, details such as the face and, to a lesser extent, the Virgin Mary’s robe exhibit more pronounced similarities with the figures of Prudence and Temperance on the funerary monument of Ladislaus of Durazzo (Naples, San Giovanni a Carbonara), a collaborative effort in which our sculptor also participated at the end of the third decade, just prior to his documented stay in the Marches.

Lorenzo Pirazzi

Entry published on 27 March 2025

Fair.

Rome, Collezione Corvisieri, until 1876;
Rome, Museo Artistico-Industriale, until 1959;
Rome, deposits of the Museo Nazionale di Palazzo Venezia.

Rome, Museo del Corso, Il ‘400 a Roma. La rinascita delle arti da Donatello a Perugino, April 29–September 7, 2008.

Erculei Raffaele, Museo del Medio Evo e del Rinascimento per lo studio dell’arte applicata all’industria. Catalogo per l’anno 1876, Roma 1876, p. 84;
Ferrari Giulio, Museo Artistico Industriale di Roma. Catalogo delle collezioni redatto da Giulio Ferrari per cura del consiglio direttivo, Roma 1906, p. 16, n. 47;
Caglioti Francesco, Su Isaia da Pisa. Due "Angeli reggicandelabro" in Santa Sabina all’Aventino e l’altare eucaristico del cardinal d’Estouteville per Santa Maria Maggiore, in «Prospettiva», 89-90, 1998, p. 157, nota 123; pp. 148-149, figg. 28-30;
Gavallotti Cavallero, in Barberini Maria Giulia, Tracce di Pietra. La collezione dei marmi di Palazzo Venezia, Roma 2008, pp. 249-250, n. 13;
Gavallotti Cavallero, in Bernardini Maria Grazia, Bussagli Marco (a cura di), Il ’400 a Roma. La rinascita delle arti da Donatello a Perugino, catalogo della mostra (Roma, Museo del Corso, 29 aprile-7 settembre 2008), vol. II, Milano 2008, p. 222, n. 141;
Mazzalupi Matteo, Ancona alla metà del Quattrocento: Piero della Francesca, Giorgio da Sebenico, Antonio da Firenze, in De Marchi Andrea, Mazzalupi Matteo (a cura di), Pittori ad Ancona nel Quattrocento, Milano, 2008, pp. 230-231;
Borghini Gabriele, Cavallo Maria Lucia, 1860-1861. Garibaldi. Rivoluzione delle Due Sicilie. Album fotografico, Roma 2011, n. 74;
Picciolo Michele, Cipollini Adriana, La Croce della Santissima Trinità di Lisciano, in «La Vita Picena», n. 3, 8 febbraio 2014; n. 4, 22 febbraio 2014 (settimanale online consultabile su www.lavitapicena.it); 
Donati Gabriele, Andrea Guardi. Uno scultore di costa nell’Italia del Quattrocento, Pisa 2015, pp. 61-62, 158, 239, n. 58;
Principi Lorenzo, Sul patrimonio scultoreo della Lunigiana storica tra Quattro e Cinqucento. Novità e precisazioni su Francesco di Valdambrino, Andrea Guardi, Leonardo Riccomanni e Domenico Gare, in Gli incontri di Apuamater. Conferenze 2013-2016, Massa 2016, p. 150.