The Treasure of the Holy Crosses is a group of items of high historical, artistic and religious interest kept in the Old Cathedral of Brescia in the Chapel of the Holy Crosses in the north transept. The treasure, usually locked inside a safe except during brief exhibitions, consists of:
the relic of the True Cross, known as the Illustrious Relic;
the staurotheke, an 11th-century silver-plated wooden casket, the original case to the Illustrious Relic;
the reliquary of the Holy Cross, made of silver and gold with enamels and gems, dating partly from 1487 and partly from 1532;
the Cross of the Field, the 11th-12th century silver-plated wood and gemstone cross that was hoisted on the Brescian chariot during the battles of the Lombard League;
a metal-clad wooden trunk, a work from the first half of the 15th century;
the reliquary of the Holy Thorns, an early 16th-century work by the Delle Croci from the monastery of Santa Giulia;
the reliquary of Bishop Zane's Cross, containing two more fragments of the True Cross, made in 1841 by goldsmith Antonio Pedrina.
The treasure, which has been kept in the cathedral for nearly a thousand years and expanded over the centuries, is cared for by the Company of the Custodians of the Holy Crosses, which is responsible for the maintenance of the pieces and, above all, their preservation during ordinary exhibitions, which take place on the last Friday of Lent and on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, September 14, and extraordinary ones, which are generally linked to important liturgical events.
History
The origins of the treasure The earliest documentary record of the treasure's existence is a provision in the Statutes of BresciaBrescia civic historical archives, statutes from 1200 to 1282, folio 17. from around 1260 or 1251, by which the podestà made arrangements with the captain and the elders of the people on where to keep the treasure and to whom to entrust its keys. No earlier archival sources are known and, therefore, it is not possible to derive from the documents the origins of the treasure, particularly the history of the Illustrious Relic, which is its main focus.
The relic of the Holy Cross: legends and truths
The best-known legend explaining the origin of the treasure is the one first narrated by Jacopo Malvezzi in the first half of the fifteenth century: the historian recounts that in the early ninth century, during the transfer of the relics of Saints Faustinus and Jovita from the basilica of San Faustino ad Sanguinem (since 1956 renamed to the church of Sant'Angela Merici), the remains of the two patron saints, during a stop next to Porta Bruciata, would exude blood. Duke Naimon of Bavaria, governor of Brescia, who happened to be in the procession, witnessing the miracle immediately and publicly converted to Catholicism, immediately donating the Illustrious Relic, the Cross of the Field and the banner of the Oriflamme to the abbot of the monastery of Saints Faustinus and Jovita and entering the monastery himself as a monk. Duke Naimon, moreover, was not the first owner of the relic but, again according to the account, had received it as a gift directly from Charlemagne. Towards the end of the 11th century, after an attempted theft, the two crosses were reportedly transferred to the Old Cathedral for better and safer storage.
There is no documentation to support this legend, so much so that it is not even possible to confirm or deny the actual existence of Naimon of Bavaria, a character who appears only in some passages of the Carolingian cycle. The only documented fact of the entire legend is the transfer of the bodies of the two saints, which actually took place on May 9, 806. However, the miracle that took place during the procession can also be said to be documented, but with a margin of doubt, since on the place where the two bodies exuded blood the church of San Faustino in Riposo was founded precisely in the 9th century, which has retained its ancient appellation in reference to the "rest," that is, the pause that the procession made during the miracle.
Andrea Valentini, in 1882, summarizes other legends related to the origins of the relic and the treasure, recovered from writings of earlier authors. The scholar, among others, reports the hypotheses that the Illustrious Relic is linked to the Fourth Crusade, which left Venice in 1202, or that it was brought to Brescia by Alberto da Reggio, a city bishop who was present at the Fifth Crusade between 1219 and 1221, or that it was a gift from Gaudentius or even Philastrius, who allegedly received it directly from St. Helena.
However, the most rooted legend in historical literature subsequent to Malvezzi remains the one linked to the figure of Naimon, at least until the eighteenth century when, first with the studies of Giovanni Girolamo Gradenigo, followed by those of Giuseppe Brunati, Alessandro Sala and Federico Odorici, the critics, linking the style of the decorations on the relic to those of the staurotheke, believed to be a Byzantine work of the 12th-13th centuries, date its arrival in Brescia to the first half of the 13th century, lending credence to the legend that saw Alberto da Reggio as the donor of the Illustrious Relic. Even this conclusion, however, is not considered valid today, since new studies formulated during the twentieth century have convincingly separated, chronologically, the relic from the staurotheke.
In any case, the well-known legend of Naimon of Bavaria narrated by Malvezzi is now to be considered groundless, as Valentini already commented in 1882 suggesting that it should be "relegated to fables," and can be assumed to be a legend that was probably already fixed in the thirteenth century and later rooted by great literary fortune. It also becomes impossible, therefore, to connect the Cross of the Field to the story of the Illustrious Relic: even from a historical point of view, since the two artifacts had different origins and ended up being placed side by side in medieval times, due to the increasingly credited legend of Naimon, simply because they were kept together in the cathedral treasury.
The Cross of the Field and the staurotheke The events at the origin of the Cross of the Field, manufactured in the Age of the Communes as the municipal cross of Brescia, to be hoisted on the chariot during battles, are equally unknown. The cross was also called the Cross of the Oriflamme, since on the chariot where it was fixed it towered over the municipal banner, called precisely Oriflamme. A reference to the Cross of the Field can perhaps be found in the hymn of the Battle of Malamorte, and it is Malvezzi again who gives news that, in addition to Rudiano, the cross was raised on the Brescian chariot at the Battle of Grumore and the Battle of Legnano. When the communal era ended, it had to end up simply kept in the treasury, gradually acquiring spiritual value as it was placed side by side with the Illustrious Relic from the legend of Naimon of Bavaria.
Also from the thirteenth century onward, some confusion in the naming of the crosses can be detected in the documents: while the Cross of the Field retains its name unchanged, the Illustrious Relic assumes the title of the Cross of the Oriflamme, when the latter was instead the second name of the Cross of the Field. The error, which remained unchanged for centuries, was corrected only from the nineteenth century onward, when the title "Cross of the Oriflamme" reverted to the second name of the Cross of the Field.
The history of the staurotheke, the original casket of the Illustrious Relic, is also unknown, but it is clear that it was made on purpose. Conversely, it is not known whether it arrived as a replacement for an earlier casket, although the obstinate will for the safekeeping over time of everything that had to do with the Illustrious Relic would be enough to rule out the possibility that a later casket existed and was later discarded.
Visconti rule
During the Visconti rule over Brescia, which began in the first half of the fourteenth century and ended a century later, the treasure must not have enjoyed a good reputation among the lords of the Milanese lineage, probably because of the great devotional fervor that the people of Brescia felt toward the Illustrious Relic. During his regency, Bernabò Visconti thwarted the memory of the treasure by having all the chronicle books, including public and private writings, concerning the memory of the Illustrious Relic and the artifacts kept along with it burned.
However, under Gian Galeazzo Visconti, the situation seems to have improved markedly: on May 13, 1400, a large group of notaries, abbots and lawyers was assembled with the aim of reconstructing the memory of the treasure through the accounts and testimonies of educated citizens, senior citizens or those who were simply able to provide information: the various contributions, after being screened and selected by the group, were collected in a large parchment, known as the Memoir of the Holy Crosses.Archives of the Company of the Custodians of the Holy Crosses, A 1-1. The main testimony collected is that of the apothecary Leoncino Ceresoli, who recounts that as a boy he worked as an altar boy in the church of Saints Faustinus and Jovita and in his spare moments he would converse with the monks, among them the 90-year-old prior Antonio who had told him the legend of Naimon of Bavaria, which is entirely transcribed in the parchment of the Memoir. The apothecary's tale is confirmed under oath by other town elders, who in turn claim to have heard the same tale from other sources.
The legend is taken verbatim by historian Jacopo Malvezzi in his Chronicon Brixianum ab origine urbis published within a few years of the writing of the memoirs, inaugurating the literary fortune of the legend of Naimon of Bavaria.
The treasure in the Renaissance The first known piece of the treasure to be added to the three originals (Cross of the Field, Illustrious Relic and staurotheke) is the small chest made in the first half of the fifteenth century to contain some secondary objects, almost all of which have been lost. The great new arrival, however, occurs in the second half of the century: on August 12, 1474, the Special Council of the city and the General Council on the 30th of the same month commissioned goldsmith Bernardino delle Croci to make a new reliquary for the fragment of the cross, similar to the one the artist was already assembling for the convent of San Domenico (lost), to be delivered by May 1475, that is, the following year.
The work, despite the deadline, did not have to be executed immediately, or else it would take a long time: on June 15, 1486, the Council resolved to recover the money with which to pay Bernardino through the sale of the silverware donated by Domenico de Dominici to the factory of the Duomo. The goldsmith's payment for his work finally arrived in 1487, a full thirteen years after the commission. The reliquary executed by Delle Croci did not initially absolve the relic's new custody: at first, it was simply fixed on top and then carried in procession, as can be seen in Moretto's Holy Cross Standard executed in 1520. When the display was finished, the relic was once again placed in the staurotheke, and the hole left at the top of the pedestal was closed with an ornate silver screw that is still kept in the treasury today, in the small chest.