Mastro Guglielmo was the Italian master of Byzantine painting of the early 12th century who signed in 1138 crucifix kept and exhibited in the co-cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta in Sarzana on the coast of the Ligurian Sea.Finestre sull’ Arte: La croce di Guglielmo a Sarzana: la prima croce dipinta datata della storia dell'arte. Retrieved 29 June 2022. (Italian)
Some miniatures also are attributed to him (based on stylistic considerations).
Crucifix from Sarzana
The crucifix from Sarzana by Mastro Guglielmo is a figure of the resurrected Christ painted in tempera on canvas, attached to a cross made of chestnut wood and is also the first known example of an iconography of the Christus triumphans typology. According to the interpretation of the Italian art historian Piero Torriti, the Jesus figure shown represents "an expanded grandeur, a strong search for life and freedom of movement that seems to dissolve the rigid oriental forms".Torriti, Piero: Ritorno a una vecchia città. Guida di Sarzana e dintorni, Sarzana: Canale, 1977, p. 72. (Italian)
Crucifix is signed above the head of Christ: "ANNO MILLENO CENTENO TER / QUOQUE DENO OCTAVO PIN / XIT GUGLIELMO ET HAEC METRA FINXIT" Burg, Tobias. Die Signatur: Formen und Funktionen vom Mittelalter bis zum 17. Jahrhundert. Munster, 2007. S. 570. This text states that the artist not only painted the painting but also wrote poetry. These poems were on the lower panels depicting the Passion of Christ, but have become almost completely illegiblehttps://provincedesienne.com/2022/12/15/mastro-guglielmo-croce-dipinta/.
One of the more famous copies of Mastro Guglielmo's crucifix can be found in the church of Heiligenkreuz Abbey, in the Lower Austrian municipality of the same name in the middle of the Vienna Woods: this was made by the Italian artist Renato Manfredi in 1980–1981 as part of the renovation of the altar area of the churchWilli, Agnes: Über alle erhöht, Heiligenkreuz: Be&Be, 2009, p. 33. (German)Stift Heiligenkreuz: "Bravo, lieber Herr Renato Manfredi, bravo!". 15 November 2012, retrieved 3. July 2022. (German) and hung above the altar on Good Friday (17 April) in 1981.Willi, Agnes: Über alle erhöht, Heiligenkreuz: Be&Be, 2009, p. 7 and 33. (German)
References
External links
Fondazione Carispezia: Una nuova Guida digitale per scoprire la preziosa Croce di Mastro Guglielmo (Italian)