XI/1 portable crucifix
Crocifissione (recto) (Crucifixion)
Crocifissione (verso) (Crucifixion)

XI/2 reliquary: theory of Saints

XI/3 reliquary: theory of Saints
         Maestro di S. Alò (Master of S. Alò)
         tempera on wood panel
         XIV century, first half
         cm 39 x 49; cm 30 x 24; cm 30 x 24
         Spoleto, monastery of S. Alò

The three reliquary tables are part of the art gallery since 1982, they were bought by the State from the Benedictines of the monastery of S. Alò of Spoleto, who received them from the previous sites of S. Ansano, S. Agata and S. Paolo inter Vineas.
The long inscription on the cross identifies the relics that are preserved and connects their arrival to Spoleto at the time of Gregory IX (1227-1241), that felt deep affection for the Benedictines of S. Paolo inter Vineas.
He dedicated to them the renewed church in 1234, imposed the rule of the Damianites of Assisi and gifted them the precious relics (Faloci Puligani 1909).
The three reliquaries were rediscovered by Bruno Toscano (1953), who highlighted the cimabuesque   and   romano-cavallinian formation of the painter and postponed the activity to the beginning of the XIV century.
Later (1974), Toscano recognised the painter in the frescoes of a church near Spoleto, S.
Maria a Morro, and linked the group to the innovations introduced in the Umbrian painting by the masters from Tuscany and Rome that worked in the nave of the Upper Church of Assisi.
The ‘poor’ means of these painted reliquaries distinguish the Umbrian Franciscan environment – reliquaries are normally made with precious materials – that is recalled by the images of San Francesco and Santa Chiara (Saint Francis and Saint Clare) painted at the foot of the Crucifix.
The images of Saint Peter and Saint Paul) found in one of the sides of the Crucifix denote loyalty to the Roman Church.

XI/4 Cristo Redentore (Christ the Redeemer)
         anonymous Venetian painter (?)
         tempera on wood panel
         XIII century, first half
         cm 16 x 9
         Spoleto, monastery of S. Alò

Table with recessed bottom, painted with tempera raised with varnish veils, covered with golden silver sheet that leaves exposed the entire image of Christ blessing with the right hand index and middle fingers and holds the book with the left hand.
A phrase in Greek is written on the book cover.
It is part of the art gallery since 1982 when it was bought by the State from the Benedictines of the monastery of S. Alò of Spoleto, who received it from the previous sites of S. Ansano, S. Agata and maybe San Paolo inter Vineas (Bonfioli 1983).
A local tradition gathered in the XVIII century says that the table was donated to Sister Ugolina, abbess of the monastery of S. Paolo inter Vineas, with many other relics of the Cross, the Sepulchre, the Crown and the Robes of Christ by her uncle the cardinal Ugolino di Segni, who became pope Gregory IX in 1227 (Faloci Pulignani 1909).
The author has been searched in Venice due to the characteristics of the filigreed metallic cover and since this city has the most profitable and tight exchanges with Constantinople and with the crusader reigns of the east Mediterranean, originating an art phenomena labelled by the historians as the «Lingua Franca» or as art of the Venetian Commonwealth in the Mediterranean.

XI /5 portable crucifix
         Crocifissione (recto) (Crucifixion)
         Deposizione dalla croce (verso)
         Maestro del Dittico Poldi Pezzoli, alias
         Maestro del Crocifisso di Trevi
         tempera on wood panel, 1325-1335
         cm 17 x 16,5

The mobile crucifix, whose original location is unknown, has reached us in a poor state of preservation and in the problematic form of a fragment.
In 1955, it was found by chance among other items in a chest in the Civic Museum of Spoleto.
In 1959, it was stolen from the room in which it was displayed and there was no trace of it until 2006, when it was recovered and returned to the Comune of   Spoleto who allocated it to this Museum.
The work, made from a single piece of wood, bears a painting on the front of a crowded crucifixion with pious Women on the left supporting the fainting Madonna who has a characteristic delicate pointed physiognomy.
On the other side, a Deposition from the cross, in which the bodies of the Madonna, Christ and the weepers, who are gently kissing his hands and feet, create an intense circular movement in the centre.Despite its poor state of conservation, the painting appears to be an interesting creation by the so-called Maestro del Dittico Poldi Pezzoli (thus named because two of his panels, an Annunciation and a Crucifixion, are conserved in the Poldi Pezzoli Museum in Milan), later identified as the Maestro del Cucifisso in Trevi, an anonymous artist who worked in the Spoleto area between about 1320 and 1340, who is characterised by a refined Gothic style matured through a knowledge of French miniatures.