Antiquarium Arborense - Museo archeologico Giuseppe Pau Oristano

The retable of the Holy Christ

The painting, made by the master Pietro Cavaro of the School Stampace of Cagliari, dates back to the first half of the sixteenth century and comes from the original Gothic building of the church of San Francesco of Oristano.

The picture’s middle table, here reproduced, represents San Francesco receiving the stigmata and it is now kept in the sacristy of the same church. In the church of San Francesco, in the first chapel on the left, is the miraculous fourteenth-century crucifix reputed to be by Nicodemo: this crucifix gave the picture its name and, according to researchers’ reconstruction, was placed in the high middle part of this big painting.

The five tables representing Franciscan protomartyrs- Accursio, Pietro, Adiuto, Ottone and Berardo- perhaps form the predella or perhaps the polvaroli of this picture.

In the upper tables are represented, in a clockwise direction, Sant’Antonio from Padova with a lily in his hand talking to San Bonaventura, then Santo Stefano with San Nicola from Bari, Santa Caterina from Alessandria with Sant’Apollonia and, in the end, San Ludovico from Tolosa with San Bernardino from Siena.