A wooden carving of Christ on the cross recently attributed to Renaissance giant Michelangelo headed off on tour around Italy Wednesday after proving a big draw at the Italian parliament earlier this year.
The cross, which has been attributed to a young Michelangelo, arrived in the Sicilian city of Trapani Wednesday where it will be the centrepiece of a trio of shows in historic city churches from March 6-20.
Trapani Archbishop Francesco Micciche', the driving force behind the shows, said: ''It will be a precious occasion to revisit depictions of the Crucifixion from medieval to contemporary art''.
Art from the Middle Ages to the 18th century will be spotlighted in Mysterium Crucis (The Mystery of the Cross) featuring, among other items, a coral cross and an alabaster crucifix by leading Sicilian artists.
The third exhibition, Across the Cross, will feature contemporary pieces such as a glass cross by South Korean artist Minjung Kim and a cross made of bedsprings by an Italian artist who works with castoff materials, Roberto D'Alia.
D'Alia's work, called The Father's Cross, aims to represent the ''marriage of the cross with humanity''.
The main show, entitled Fulget Crucis Mysterium (May The Mystery of the Cross Shine Out), will be inaugurated Friday by Italian Culture Minister Sandro Bondi and Senate Speaker Renato Schifani.
The rediscovered Michelangelo cross, which drew some 30,000 people to the Chamber of Deputies in January, will be the standout piece on show.
After its stay in Trapani, the cross will travel across Sicily to Palermo for a show lasting from March 22 to April 3 before heading for Milan for a two-month exhibition from April 6.
There, at the Castello Sforzesco, it will be united with Michelangelo's famous Pieta' Rondanini, a glory of the artist's later years.
''Finally the young and the mature Michelangelos will be able to talk to each other,'' Bondi said.
The minister said that the cross would also ''probably'' go on tour abroad before finding a permanent home in Florence's Bargello museum.
Cross discovered four years ago
The cross, which only came to light four years ago, was bought from a Turin art dealer in December in one of the Italian state's highest-profile acquisitions in years.
The state paid the arts dealer, Giancarlo Gallino, 3.25 million euros for the work - an exceptionally low price made possible by past disputes on its authenticity.
Art expert Vittorio Sgarbi, a supporter of the attribution, said the state had ''effectively got a Michelangelo at the price of a Sansovino''.
The limewood carving made its first-ever public appearance in Florence in 2004, shortly after its new attribution.
It was displayed for four months at the Tuscan city's Horne Museum before returning to Gallino's collection.
Earlier that year experts attributed it to Michelangelo, who lived from 1475 to 1564.
It was dated to 1495, when the artist was 20.
The experts were convinced by the style of the piece rather than documentation.
The 41.3cm carving was assessed by a mixed team of professors and scientists from Florence, Siena and Perugia universities, who tested it with CAT scans and examined it for the anatomical accuracy for which Michelangelo was renowned.
They reported that the posture, bones and musculature were ''perfectly in keeping with the body of a 30-year-old man who had died less than 48 hours previously''.
While Michelangelo is traditionally known for the daunting scale of his pieces, Perugia University's Giancarlo Gentilini said it was plausible he would have created such a small, detailed sculpture during this period.
''The young Michelangelo had close ties to the circle of (Florentine monk Girolamo) Savonarola, which was responsible for the spread of these small crucifixes,'' the professor noted.
''There would have been plenty of opportunities to carve such images and it's very likely that one of his principal customers, the Dominican monks in Bologna or Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de Medici, would have requested one''.
