Reliquary of the True Cross (c. 1214): Art, History and Details

Reliquary of the True Cross (c. 1214) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

A lengthy Latin inscription on the frame recounts the history of the central relic--a fragment of the True Cross--and provides an exact date for its container: "You who ask about the cross: read! The heir of Judas the priest/Stole it. But when, after boarding a ship,/He sought a mild breeze, a fierce storm opposed the sorry sailors./Out of his mind, he gnawed at his own hands./In the end the blessed Virgin spoke thus to him:/‘You shall soon be well, if you seek to return what was stolen.’/ He pays back this debt to the brothers of the Temple . . . When he died, they cast him overboard, and the storm subsided./Happy they arrive at Brindisi, quiet they have returned with the cross,/Which resides beautiful in this handsome panel. This tablet was created in the 1214th year from the Lord’s incarnation in the month of February."

Object facts

• Title: Reliquary of the True Cross
• Date: c. 1214
• Culture: Cross: Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem Panel: Rhine-Meuse region, Gothic period, 13th century
• Type: Metalwork
• Technique: silver, gilded silver, niello, precious stones, walnut core
• Dimensions: Overall: 44 x 31 x 4.7 cm (17 5/16 x 12 3/16 x 1 7/8 in.)
• Collection: MED - Gothic
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1952.89

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Milliken, William. "Reliquary of the True Cross." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 39, no. 8 (October 1952): 203-205.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.
• Verdier. “A Thirteenth-Century Reliquary of the True Cross.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 69, no. 3 (March 1982): 94–110.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.