Description
The Orsini-Odescalchi Cross is a late-thirteenth-century painted crucifix in the Salini Collection, traditionally associated with Duccio di Buoninsegna. Christ is shown alive, his eyes open, preserving the earlier image of the triumphant Saviour at a time when representations of suffering and death were becoming increasingly common. The cross's present outline is a modern reconstruction following losses to the original structure.
The attribution remains disputed. Scholars have variously proposed Duccio, Cimabue, a collaboration between them, and an anonymous Florentine painter influenced by Cimabue. These competing interpretations illuminate the close artistic exchanges between Siena and Florence. The discussion of Duccio and Cimabue reveals how artistic influence operated in medieval Italy. An innovation did not necessarily belong to one painter alone: ways of modelling faces, describing muscles and softening expressions could travel between cities and workshops.
