Vatican Museums

This item, carved in rock crystal with the incavo relief technique and signed at the suppedaneum at the base of the Cross, is the work of Valerio Belli of Vicenza, goldsmith and engraver of gems, among the most celebrated of his time. The item – perfectly aligned, in the figures, with the “modern” style of Michelangelo and Raphael – may be identified with the “divine crystal cross” that Vasari, in the Giunti edition of his “Lives” (1568), mentions as being made by Belli for Pope Clement VII. The hypothesis is confirmed by the pontiff’s personal inventory, where he mentions a “Carved crystal cross, a crucifix and other figures with a gilded silver base, which was bought from Valerio of Vincenza in 1524”. It belonged, with the inlaid ovals shown below, to the same altar set, which came under the ownership of a Marescotti of Bologna at the time of the French occupation. The entire group, dismembered, was bought by Pius IX at the Refuge for the Poor (or Hospital of the Forsaken) in Bologna in 1855 and donated to the Vatican Library in 1857.