Processional Cross of San Millán de la Cogolla (lower arm and foot)
Unknown · 985-1000
The long ivory arm in the case is the lower shaft and foot of a processional cross carved around the year one thousand at the monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla in La Rioja, in northern Spain. Its size is exceptional for ivory. On both faces a broad band of scrolling vines runs the length of the arm, and inside the scrolls live real and imaginary animals. The style borrows freely from the carved ivory boxes of Islamic Al-Andalus, which is why it is usually called Mozarabic, a term some scholars question. Small holes and hollows show where gold and coloured glass beads were once inlaid.
The upper arm of the same cross is displayed beside it, and a third fragment is in the National Archaeological Museum in Madrid. San Millán, founded over the tomb of the hermit saint Emilian, was one of the oldest and most celebrated monasteries in Spain, and its cross was carried in procession and set on the altar. The two arms later passed through the Maillet du Boulay collection and that of Félix Doistau in Paris, whose gift to the Louvre was accepted in June nineteen hundred and four.
Did You Know? The cross mixes Christian purpose with animal scrolls copied from the ivory workshops of Muslim Spain.
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