Description
Frate Innocenzo’s Ta’ Ġieżu crucifix is a mid-17th-century image that instills so much awe and wonderment upon all those who set eyes upon it. All the constituent elements of its materiality: sculpted wood; parchment; gesso and polychromy. masterfully kneaded together by the artist’s deep-seated faith, manage to reach that elusive liminal stage between the sensual and the spiritual.
This book aims to capture some of this crucifix’s sense of mystery. This is a multi-disciplinary study that documents and brings to a conclusion an intensive restoration/conservation projects that was carried out on this crucifix during a 10-month period between 2018 and 2019. The combined significance of the following papers is meant to provide not only a record of the in-depth historical research and an exposition of the diagnostic/conservation processes carried out, but must serve as a comprehensive basis for future conservators and historians who, in their different capacities, will work upon the crucifix.
