Crucifix
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Authors
Francesco Cavallini, attributed to
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Keyword
Crucifix , Christ , Crucifixion , Passion
Alternative Title
Abstract
In the Chapel of the Crucifix, located in the right aisle of the Basilica of San Ambrogio e Carlo al Corso in Rome, stands a polychrome crucifix made from stucco. While Ilenia Grazioli suggests that the crucifix is made of peperino stone covered in stucco and attributes it to Francesco Cavallini (c. 1640–c. 1703), this claim is unusual, as stone crucifixes are exceedingly rare, and a stucco construction would be more consistent with the techniques and materials of the time, as well as the medium Cavallini was known to work in.
Francesco Cavallini, a student of Cosimo Fancelli (1618–1688), was hired alongside his master in 1677 to complete sculptures for the church’s high altar. In the same year, the Archconfraternity of San Carlo commissioned Cavallini to create a series of ten larger-than-life stucco statues of saints, placed within the niches of the minor naves and ambulatory. The crucifix in the Chapel of the Crucifix has also been attributed to Cavallini in the 18th volume of Gaetano Moroni’s Dizionario di Erudizione Storico-ecclesiastica (1843).
This crucifix conveys Christ’s suffering with detail. His fingers and toes curl under the force of the nails, his abdominal and arm muscles tense as he struggles against the weight of his body, and blood streams from his hands, feet, and the crown of thorns. The blood trails flow down his torso, staining the loincloth and heightening the emotional intensity of the scene. Usually, the blood stops at the loincloth, continuing below as biblical accounts do not imply that Christ wore a loincloth during the Crucifixion. Notably, the sculpture omits Christ’s fifth wound—the piercing on his side from the Lance of Longinus—indicating that he remains alive, enduring the full agonies of the Crucifixion.
Photograph(s) licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Description
San Ambrogio e Carlo al Corso, Rome
Citation
Ilenia Grazioli, Basilica dei SS. Ambrogio e Carlo al Corso in Roma restaurata (1987-2004) : restaurata (1987-2004) (Roma: Arciconfraternita SS. Ambrogio e Carlo, 2004); Antonella Pampalone, “Cavallini, Francesco,” Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani - Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana fondata da Giovanni Treccani 22 (1979); Gaetano Moroni, Dizionario di erudizione storico-ecclesiastica da S. Pietro sino ai nostri giorni (Venezia: Tipografia Emiliana, 1840), 272.