Detail of the Marble Column Statue of St. Hilary in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, April 2011

Title: Column Statue of Saint Hilary of Galeata

Date: ca. 1170–1200

Geography: Made in Galeata, Romagna, Northern Italy

Culture: North Italian

Medium: Marble (Carrara marble)

Dimensions: Overall: 34 7/8 x 4 1/4 x 6 3/4 in. (88.6 x 10.8 x 17.1 cm)
weight: 72lb. (32.7kg)

Classification: Sculpture-Stone

Credit Line: Rogers Fund, 1908

Accession Number: 08.175.9


This column statue, from the destroyed cloister of the Benedictine abbey of Sait’Ellero di Galeata, Forlí, represents the patron saint and founder of the abbey. Wearing a monastic habit and a tonsure (partially shaved head), Saint Hilary (478–558) holds a scroll inscribed in Latin affirming the rights of the abbey to income from a certain territory. Thus the statue of the founding saint functions as a charter image for the monastery and for the rights it claimed.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/463096