CRUCIFIXUS DOLOROSUS

This remarkable polchrome crucifix is very closely related to the celebrated Crucfixus Dolorosus above the altar of SS. Crocifisso in Palermo Cathedral, Sicily. Although different in scale the two crucifixes are practically identical, with the same highly three-dimensional figure and the chest conceived as a series of expressive ribs above a flat abdomen, as if the figure is almost broken at the waist. The Palermo Crucifix bears a mythology that it was carved by Saint Luke and Nicodemus, and later led into Sicily by Angelus of Jerusalem (1185-1220). However, in reality, it was gifted to the cathedral in 1311 by Manfredi I Chiaramonte, count of Modica, and Kalina has dated it to circa 1300-10 (P. Kalina, 'Giovanni Pisano, the Dominicans, and the Origin of the 'crucifixi dolorosi'', Artibus et Historiae, vol. 23, no. 47, 2003, pp. 81-101).
Both the present and the Palermo crucifix may be interpreted as the first generation of a sculptural type invented by Giovanni Pisano in Florence around 1300. Kalina identifies crucifixes spread all over Europe, distinguished by the drastic expression of Christ's face, the broken line of his body, the expressive polychromy and naturalistic details such as the swollen skin around the wounds of the hands and feet, that originate with Giovanni's stylistic innovations. It is possible that some of these crucifxes originated in a Tuscan workshop, as Tuscan merchants occassionaly traded in works of art, which could have led to the diffusion of the imagery. The ideological roots of the 'crucfixi dolorosi' appear to have been spread by the Dominican order, and in the work of St Thomas Aquinas, who stressed that Christ had suffered in all his members and through all the senses.