Crucifix
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Authors
unknown artist
Date
Type
image
Language
Keyword
Christ , Crucifix , Cross , Jesus
Alternative Title
Abstract
This large polychromed wood crucifix is first documented being carried in procession in 1335, but the devotions with which it became closely associated were those of the Bianchi in 1399. The Bianchi were a lay devotional movement that swept across Italy. People wore white, performed penitential acts, sang songs, and went on great processions carrying crucifixes in an attempt to escape God's wrath (in the form of the plague). Many of these crucifixes were recorded to have performed miracles --speaking, moving, spouting blood, healing, etc., and so all of the Bianchi crucifixes gained an aura of the miraculous, whether that specific object had performed a miracle or no. Photograph(s) licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Description
San Michele Visdomini, Florence
Citation
Margrit Lisner, Holzkruzifixe in Florenz und in der Toskana (Munich: Bruckmann, 1970), 33-4; Megan Holmes, The Miraculous Image in Renaissance Florence (New Haven: Yale UP, 2013), 47-9, 152-6.