Crucifix
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Authors
Giovanni Teutonico
Date
Type
Image
Language
Keyword
Crucifix , Christ , Jesus , Cross , Passion
Alternative Title
Abstract
This over-lifesized crucifix in the Cathedral of Salò is documented to have been made by a man known as Giovanni Teutonico in 1449. "Giovanni Teutonico" or "tedesco" was a German man living in Lombardy, who gained great fame and was even named rector of the hospital of Salò. Itinerant German sculptors, especially specialists in making crucifixes, travelled throughout Italy. Giovanni Teutonico seems to have been different, more settled in Salò. The crucifix he created is also less violent and bloody than most German crucifixes of the the period, more Italian in its loveliness, with curling hair falling on the shoulderns and a placid face. The wound in the side of the torso is particularly precise in its carving, with layers of skin and muscle exposed, the skin wrinkling where the wound has been pulled open. The figure has a fleshy realism, with painted body and groin hair and seemingly dripped but actually meticulously painted drips of blood. The crucifix, as is almost always the case, is made of painted wood, and the raised veins from string covered in gesso and attached to the surface. The figures is exactly the same height as width. The crucifix has gained great fame, and old stories are told about it. In one, Mantegna admires it at length -- but this story is not likely to be true or at any rate not to apply to this crucifix, which was not placed in the Cathedral until 1493. In another story, the artist later created a very similar crucifix for another city but then, because he did not have enough wood for a fire to heat his food, burned it. This tale, told over a century later by an author (Grattarolo) who called the artist "bizarre," is again likely not true, instead one the tales of the caprices of artists that were so popular in the cinquecento. It does attest to the fame of this crucifix, unusual both for this type of object, and because the work of foreigners was not generally so celebrated. Photograph(s) licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Description
Cathedral, Salò
Citation
Raffaele Casciaro, La scultura lignea lombarda del Rinascimento (Milan: Skira, 2000), 43-50; Alia Engeln, Il Crocifisso del Duomo di Salò (Brescia: Grafo edizioni, 1982); https://www.gardapost.it/2017/04/15/crocifisso-duomo-di-salo/