Pollinger Cross

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Pollinger Cross
Main altar with the Pollingen cross

The Pollinger Cross , also known as the Holy Cross or Tassilo Cross , is a high medieval table cross that is extremely rare in the area north of the Alps. It forms the center of the high altar of the former Augustinian canons' monastery church Heilig Kreuz in Polling , a community in Pfaffenwinkel in the Upper Bavarian district of Weilheim-Schongau .

history

The Pollinger Cross is a table cross made of spruce wood that is completely covered with parchment . The tree from which the two spruce boards are made was felled between 884 and 1018. The exact circumstances of the creation of the cross, including when the cross was venerated in Polling, are not known. Over time it must have become brittle and metal clips were used to keep it from breaking apart. To hide the metal brackets, the cross was covered with parchment and then gilded and painted. The parchment was made from the skin of an animal killed between 1033 and 1230, the painting dates from around 1230/40.

Cross altar, finding of the Pollingen cross

The cross used to stand on the right side altar, the so-called cross altar , where it was venerated as a miraculous image . The panel paintings of the Gothic winged altar were created around 1420 by the so-called master of the Pollinger panels , some have been kept in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich since secularization . A panel depicts the legendary discovery of the Pollinger Cross by Duke Tassilo III. In the course of the baroque redesign of the church, the cross was placed on the main altar in 1628. In the 18th century it was protected by a glass case decorated in the Rococo style. It should prevent pilgrims from taking splinters of the wood with them. After its restoration, the cross was reinstalled in the main altar in 1994.

description

The cross has a height of 2.50 meters and is almost two meters wide, the figure of Christ is life-size with a height of 1.70 meters. The visible surface of the cross is covered with gold leaf . The figure of Christ is painted directly on the golden background, the crossbars are not painted on. The outlines of the body are framed by contour lines. The hair, the nails and the bleeding wounds on the hands and feet as well as the wound on the side from which "blood and water" flowed ( Joh 19,33-37  LUT ) are finely worked out. In the representation the moment of the death of Christ is recorded, as it is described in the Gospel according to John : "And bowed the head and passed" ( Joh 19,30  LUT ).

literature

Web links

Commons : Pollinger Kreuz  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Polling - place of pilgrimage and refuge of science, House of Bavarian History (accessed June 24, 2020)

Coordinates: 47 ° 48 ′ 42.1 ″  N , 11 ° 7 ′ 54.1 ″  E