Painted crosses and the trajectories of medieval image captions : evidence from thirteenth-century Zadar and beyond

The far-ranging networks of texts and objects, from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean, draw this study to the Dalmatian city of Zadar, and, from there, expands its scope to examine extensive material to address the issue of the interplay between text and image in devotional contexts. The paper focuses especially on a group of thirteenth-century painted crosses in Zadar and their striking verse inscriptions. Expanding long-lived debate about the Rex obit verse inscribed on one of the Zadar crosses, and a dozen other Deposition and Crucifixion depictions, the paper presents pan-European evidence for the display of simple double-rimmed formulae as image captions, with special emphasis on monumental crosses, whether painted, sculpted in wood, or cast in bronze.