The Crusaders Reach Jerusalem (from a set of Scenes from Gerusalemme Liberata)
Designed by Domenico Paradisi Italian
Woven at the San Michele
Workshop director Pietro Ferloni Italian
Not on view
Commissioned by Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni, a great-nephew of Pope Alexander VIII, this was part of a massive series, heroic in scale as well as narrative, of fifteen tapestries depicting the romanticized version of the Christians’ First Crusade into Jerusalem recounted in Tasso’s sixteenth-century epic poem, Gerusalemme Liberata (Jerusalem Delivered).
As the crusaders reach the city of Jerusalem, two of the Christian leaders kneel in the foreground, both in Classical armor with garments of red, blue and yellow. The younger man is presumably Godfrey of Bouillon. Other mounted men in gray armor are seen behind. Rising in the background on the right are the walls of Jerusalem.
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