Legend of the True Cross (Agnolo Gaddi, Santa Croce)

The fresco cycle is located in the chancel of the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence. It was painted in the late fourteenth century and remains one of the major decorative programs in the church.

The frescoes draw principally on the Golden Legend (Legenda Aurea), the medieval compilation of hagiographies by Jacobus de Voragine. This popular text provided the narrative framework for many medieval and Renaissance depictions of sacred history.

Agnolo Gaddi was a late fourteenth-century Florentine painter and the son of Taddeo Gaddi, who was himself a pupil of Giotto. His work in Santa Croce represents one of the significant fresco commissions of late Trecento Florence.

The sequential scenes recount the history of the wood believed to have become Christ's cross, tracing it from the Tree of Knowledge through its discovery by Saint Helena. The cycle follows the narrative established in the Golden Legend.