La "Croce Patriarcale" a Maastricht. Vicende storiche

The Cross Reliquary bears a long inscription with letters of the Greek alphabet praising the value of the relics it contains: fi ve big fragments of the True Cross of Christ. The text bears the name of the donor, Emperor Romano, without mentioning to whom among the several members of the dynasty of the Middle Byzantine Period it referred. The artwork is also known as the Cross Reliquary of Maastricht, where it arrived at the beginning of the XIII century and was kept until the early XX century. The events that possibly characterized its history are investigated, with an eye on the protagonists who brought it to Northern Europe, and how it found its way to the Vatican in 1837.