Sul reliquiario della Vera Croce nel tesoro della cattedrale di Alessandria

The present paper focuses on the reliquary of the True Cross that is now kept in the treasury of St Peter's Cathedral in Alessandria (Piedemont). This reliquary, a fine as well as imposing 1619 Milanese ('Borromaic') silver piece, contains the fragments of the Holy Wood that were donated to the commune of Alessandria in 1208 by Obizzo Reversati, a former companion of arms of Marquis Bonifacio I of Monferrato, 'king' of Thessalonica from 1204 to 1207. The fragments are preserved inside the 1619 reliquary within a wooden case covered with a silk fabric (purple brocade decorated with gold leaf motives). They are ranged in the form of a Greek cross with slightly unequal arms, out of respect for the integrity of such precious relics. This cross is mounted into a larger support provided by a wooden double bar ('patriarchal') cross, standing on an expanded base carved to resemble Calvary, that exactly fits into a like-shaped cavity hewn into the case (actually one massive panel) and is mentioned already in the 1208 donation act. The fragments appear, however, in what is left of their 11th-cent. Byzantine setting, which includes a silver-gilt boss at the center and five silver-gilt clamps decorated with cloisonné enamel patterns at the ends of the cross arms. Four round brass shields, now fixed with nails towards the ends of the wooden support (one of them just below the upper bar), were also part the setting. The four shields bear as many coeval cross-shaped niello inscriptions in Greek, forming an epigram of two dodecasyllable verses - here published and discussed anew - with an invocation to the Holy Cross as the 'seal of the Trinity' by 'John, the priest (thýtēs) of Bér(rh)oia', in western Macedonia. John could very well be an 11th-cent. bishop of Béroia (Veria), the city from which, rather than from Constantinople in 1204 (as claimed, for the sake of prestige, in the donation act), the Cross relic was likely taken by or for Obizzo sometime between 1205 and 1206 - when Béroia belonged to Bonifacio's domain.