GADDI, Agnolo
(active 1369-96 in Florence)

Retrieval and Trial of the Three Crosses

1385-87
Fresco
Chancel Chapel, Santa Croce, Florence

After Emperor Constantine's victory over his rival Maxentius, Constantine's mother, Helena, heads to Jerusalem in order to seek the True Cross. The location where it has been hidden can be learned only with the compelled assistance of a Jew named Judas. As the Cross is unearthed, the crosses of the two thieves are also discovered. The True Cross is identified when a dead youth who is being carried past on a bier is brought to life again after the three crosses, one after the other, are laid over him.

The order in which the images are to be read differs from that in the other frescoes: the recovery of the crosses is shown at the right, and on the left is the identification of the True Cross. Extending behind this is a landscape of a markedly bucolic character, a world that appears to be completely untouched by the events occurring in the foreground.




© Web Gallery of Art, created by Emil Krén and Daniel Marx.