Reliquary cross
Unknown Northern European artist

Twelfth-century churchmen and the nobility in central France prided themselves on their devotion to the scared sites of the Holy Land. Relics from that region, alternating with more than sixty "gems" of colored glass, were ground down and enameled on this cross. Identified by inscriptions along the sides, they include a fragment believed to be from the cross on which Jesus died, relics of his tomb, and relics of the Virgin Mary, the Holy Innocents, and early deacons of the Church.

Purchase through the Peter V. Endowment Fund