Copper astylar cross, Lombardy-Venetian area, 15th-16th century

embossed, chiselled and gilded copper sheet on a gilded cast metal core.The finely decorated cross has a Latin cross structure, with the arms having sharp profiles and poly-lobed finials; both faces are decorated with a rhomboid checkerboard motif on a punched background.On the front, the figure of Christ crucified on a thin cross appears at the intersection of the arms, while in the embossed side panels one can see the half-busts of Mary and John, at the top an angel and at the bottom Mary Magdalene. On the front, on the other hand, God the Father is depicted in the centre, blessing the whole figure, and on the four terminals the animal symbols of the Evangelists: at the top the eagle representing John, at the bottom the angel, symbol of Matthew, on the right the lion of Mark, and on the opposite side the bull, symbol of the Evangelist Luke. Worthy of note, on the reverse side, is the figure of Christ in the centre, which is based on an archaic model. The general design of the cross falls within current modules: the edges are wavy, the intersection of the arms is connected by an outline, the backgrounds are decorated.The work is part of the vast repertoire of 15th-century Lombardy processional crosses characterised by this type of structure and decoration. In the case proposed here, a certain archaism can be noted, both in the style of the images and in the technique of creating the embossed figures directly from the background sheets, i.e. not by applying the panels to the metal surfaces that completely cover the arms of the object.

Item condition grading: **** good, defects and missing parts).