Other Restorations
Church of San Samuele | Church of San Lio | Monumental Arch | Cornaro Chapel | Saint Mark Healing the Cobbler Anianus | Four Wooden Poles | Façade of Scuola Dalmata | Sarcophagus of Giovanni Priuli | Marco Polo Arch | Tombstones, New Jewish Cemetery, Lido |   Bernabò Chapel and Relief of the Coronation of the Virgin | Photographs of Venetian Architecture and Sculpture  |  19th-Century Glass-Plate Negatives of Venice from the Ferdinando Ongania Collection  |  St. Martin and the Beggar  | Madonna with Child and St. Peter |  Crucifix

 

Crucifix

Artist: Anonymous 14th – century scupltor
Location: Church of San Domenico, Chioggia
Medium: Wood, rope and canvas
Treatment: Testing, cleaning and restoration
Sponsor Status: Save Venice General Funds

This large wooden Crucifix is the most sacred and revered object in the city of Chioggia, a fishing community located on the southern tip of the Venetian lagoon. Its image is often painted on the sails and boats of Chioggia's fishermen.

There are two legends regarding its origin. The first suggests that the cross was made by Christ's covert disciple Nicodemus, a witness to his death. The Crucifix then found its way to a town in the Marche region of central Italy. It is said that St. Peter Martyr asked to have it brought from there to Venice, and while in transit, a shipwreck caused it to wash up on Chioggia's shores. Another legend has it being one of four crucifixes made by St. Luke. In this story, it was kept in Constantinople until 1453 when that city fell to the Turks. Christian soldiers, to prevent its destruction by the infidel, threw it into the sea. "Divine will" then made it float to Chioggia.

Experts who studied the Chioggia Crucifix during its restoration think it is probably the work of an artist from Strasbourg dating to the late 1300s or early 1400s. It is unusually large: the sculpture of Christ stands nine feet tall, and the Cross measures more than fifteen feet high and eleven feet wide.

Due to the Crucifix's imposing weight and dimension, land transportation would have been difficult. It most likely arrived in Chioggia from its country of origin by sea, if not dramatically washing up on Chioggia's shores. The earliest document referring to the Crucifix is dated 1446, when a bequest was made in its honor to the Church of San Domenico.

Restoration revealed puzzling elements that confirm the work of art's strange history. Signs indicate that, a very short time after the Crucifix was made, Christ's arms were cut off and then later reattached and the sculpture completely repainted. It is possible that the arms were removed in order to transport the figure of Christ, and that the entire Crucifix needed to be repainted due to the extensive damage. With the aid of cross-section analysis, in which paint chips are analyzed to distinguish paint layers, restorers have been able to uncover and preserve the early-fifteenth-century polychromy.

The Chioggia Crucifix returned to the Church of San Domenico in July,  2005. It once again arrived by water, traveling by boat across the Venetian lagoon from the restoration laboratory on the Brenta Canal.  The people of Chioggia joyfully welcomed back their Crucifix with a special Mass coinciding with a ceremony honoring the city's oldest fishermen and a traditional ritual celebrating Chioggia's mystical "marriage" to the sea.

Photo:   Giovanna Menegazzi