Canoscio - The Canoscio Hoard

The Canoscio Hoard

Canoscio was the site where a 6th‑century paleo-Christian dinner service of 25 silver pieces came to light under the plough in 1935: the pieces in the Canoscio hoard, now displayed in the Museo del Duomo, Città di Castello, as Early Christian liturgical silver, may not all have been expressly designed for liturgical use. The pieces, found carefully stowed under a large plate for protection as they were being buried in a shallow pit, consist of six plates, two patens, three unmarked hemispherical chalices, a pyx with its cover, also unmarked, two strainers, a small ladle and nine spoons of purely domestic character. Not all the objects are in forms that can be related to the liturgy. Names of Aelianus and Felicitas, probably donors, are inscribed on one of the patens. The large plate that protected the hoard, was shattered by the plough: reassembled, it reveals the inscription in its center .

The largest of the unbroken plates was surely designed for a liturgical use from the beginning: in the center there is a raised surface familiar from pagan paterae, which kept the thumb free of the libation when making an offering. The central section is chased with a Byzantine Cross with alpha and omega: below flow four rivers. At the side of the cross are depicted the hand of God and the dove of the Holy Spirit; at the bottom there are two lambs facing each other.

The larger of the two strainers is engraved with the labarum and alpha and omega, their outlines traced with tiny straining holes.