Holy Face of Lucca
The Holy Face of Lucca (Italian: Volto Santo di Lucca) is an eight-foot-tall (2.4 m), ancient wooden carving of Jesus crucified in the cathedral of San Martino, Lucca, Italy. Medieval legends state that it was sculpted by Nicodemus who assisted St. Joseph of Arimathea in placing Christ in his tomb after the crucifixion. The same legends placed its miraculous arrival in Lucca to AD 782.
Radiocarbon dating of both wood and canvas places it between 770–880 AD, which corresponds to the Legend of Leobino according to which the Holy Face arrived in Lucca from Palestine in 782 (another copy says 742).[1][2][3]
The Holy Face is located in the free-standing octagonal Carrara marble chapel (the tempietto or "little temple"), which was built in 1484 by Matteo Civitali, the sculptor-architect of Lucca, to contain it. The tempietto stands in the left-hand aisle of the cathedral of San Martino in Lucca.
Copies of a similar size from the 12th century are found widely spread across Europe. These include the Cross of Imervard in the Brunswick Cathedral at Braunschweig, Germany, the Holy Face of Sansepolcro at Sansepolcro, Italy and possibly the Batlló Crucifix of Barcelona, Spain.[4] The Holy Face is also depicted on a 14th-century gothic fresco in a Lutheran church in Štítnik, Slovakia.[5]
"By the Holy Face of Lucca" was a phrase often used by William Rufus when swearing to perform an act or deed during his reign as King of England.
Wilgefortis[edit]
At the end of the fourteenth century, such a Holy Face inspired miracles and veneration in the Low Countries, Bavaria and the Tyrol,[16] though its connection with Lucca had been forgotten. The long robe worn by the statue appeared to signify that the figure was of a woman. To account for the beard, a legend developed of a young noblewoman who miraculously grew a beard in order to maintain her virginity. Her father, often said to be the king of Portugal, promised her in marriage to another pagan king. Wilgefortis, who had taken a vow of perpetual virginity, prayed to be made repulsive to her future husband. As a result, she grew a long, flowing beard. In a rage, her father had her crucified. Wilgefortis became a popular figure in folk Catholicism. As a result, she assumed various local names including Kümmernis in Germany or Sainte Débarras in France,[17] and was duly entered in the Martyrologium Romanum in 1583, retaining a devoted following as late as the nineteenth century.