Crucifix (Cross No. 20)

This large painted cross was made in Pisa early in the 1200s by an artist whose name is lost, known now only as the Master of the Crucifix of Pisa. What matters about it is a change it helped begin. For centuries Western churches had shown Christ alive on the cross, upright and open-eyed, triumphant over death. Here, instead, he is already dead. The head drops onto the shoulder, the body curves and sags, the eyes are closed. This is one of the earliest large Western images to show a suffering, dead Christ, an idea that came in from Byzantine painting to the east. It is nearly three metres tall, painted in tempera and gold, and once hung in a convent in Pisa before entering the city's San Matteo museum.