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.
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Artwork Details
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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
Inscription: SA[NCTU]S hIL[superscript A]R[U][superscript S] / Sed H[a]ec DEBITA / QU[A]E IUXT[A] PLEBIS SI / CULARIQUE SERVI / TIO P[ER]TINERE VIDE / BANTUR dE TERRI / TORIO QUOD MILI / TES CIRCUIERA[N]T / CUM OM[N]IBUS IU / STIS OBSEQUI / IS S[AN]C[T]O VIRO DE / DIT (But Saint Hilary gave, with all rights and duties, these [things] to the holy man to whom they were owed from land which the soldiers had gone around, and which were next to the plebs and seemed to pertain to secular servitude)
From the Abbey of Sant’Ellero di Galeata (ForÌì); [ Dealer, Ravenna (after 1865–before end 19th century)]; [Unidentified dealer, Venice]; [ Julius Böhler Kunsthandlung, Munich (sold 1908)]
Mittarelli, Giovanni Benedetto, and Anselmo Costadoni. Annales Camaldulenses ordinis Sancti Benedicti: Quibus plura interferuntur tum ceteras Italico-monasticas res, tum historiam Ecclesiasticam remque diplomaticam illustrantia. Vol. 2. Venice, 1756. p. 70.
Sangiorgi, Giacopo. Vita di sant'Ilaro abate di Galeata e protettore di Lugo. Faenza, 1792. p. 67.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Complete List of Accessions." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, o.s., 3, no. 10 (October 1908). p. 195.
Breck, Joseph. Catalogue of Romanesque, Gothic, and Renaissance Sculpture. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1913. no. 2, p. 4.
Porter, Arthur Kingsley. "The Rise of Romanesque Sculpture." American Journal of Archaeology 22, no. 4 (1918). pp. 419, 425–26, fig. 20.
Mambrini, Domenico. Cronotassi degli abati di San Ellero in Galeata. Meldola: Tipografia Fratelli Gugnoni, 1925. p. 9.
Mambrini, Domenico. Galeata nella storia e nell'arte. Bagno di Romagna: Tipografia Stefano Vestrucci e Figlio, 1935. pp. 28–29.
Jullian, René. L'éveil de la sculpture italienne: La sculpture romane dans l'Italie du Nord. Vol. 1. Paris: G. van Oest et cie, 1945. p. 167.
Leoncini, Ellero. L'Abbazia di S. Ellero nel XIV centenario della morte del suo fondatore, 15 maggio 1958. Città di Castello: Società Poligrafica Editoriale, 1958. p. 27.
Corbara, Antonio. "La 'Memoria' Ilaro-Teodericiana di Galeata." Felix Ravenna 76 (1968). p. 13.
Leoncini, Ellero. Il palazzo del re degli ostrogoti Teodorico in Galeata (Forlì). Forlì: Camera di Commercio, Industria, Artigianato e Agricoltura, Forlì, 1968. p. 8.
Pressouyre, Leon. "Le Saint Hilaire de Galeata au Metropolitan Museum of Art." Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 6th ser., 73 (March 1969). pp. 129–40, fig. 1, 2, 5, 7.
Salet, Francis. "Le Saint Hilaire de Galeata." Bulletin Monumental 127 (1969).
Cahn, Walter. "Romanesque Sculpture in American Collections VII: New York and New Jersey." Gesta 10, no. 1 (1971). p. 49.
Beeson, Nora B., ed. Guide to The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1972. no. 29, pp. 216–17.
"St. Bernard to St. Francis: Monastic Ideals and Iconographic Programs in the Cloister." Gesta 12, nos. 1-2 (1973). p. 74.
Cahn, Walter. Romanesque Sculpture in American Collections: Volume 1, New England Museums. New York: B. Franklin, 1979. p. 7.
Budriesi, Roberta. "Itinerario nel museo: L'Atrio." In Galeata: I monumenti, il museo, gli scavi. Guide (Società di Studi Romagnoli), Vol. 5. Bologna: La Fotocromo Emiliana, 1983. pp. 78–79.
Budriesi, Roberta. Entroterra "ravennate" e orizzonti barbarici : matrici e uomini nuovi nei monumenti delle alte valli dal Lamone al Savio. Speculum Artium, Vol. 16. Ravenna: Angelo Longo Editore, 1984. pp. 219–26, 294, 301–5, 308, fig. 26.
Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Lisbeth. "Romanesque Sculpture in North American Collections. XXII. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Part II: Italy." Gesta 24, no. 1 (1985). no. 3, pp. 65–66, fig. 3.
Bornstein, Christine Verzar. Portals and Politics in the Early Italian City-State: The Sculpture of Nicholaus in Context. Parma: Università degli Studi di Parma, 1988. p. 87, n. 7, fig. 106.
Smith, Elizabeth Bradford, ed. Medieval Art in America: Patterns of Collecting, 1800–1940. University Park, Pa.: Palmer Museum of Art, Pennsylvania State University, 1996. pp. 108–109, 145.
Cahn, Walter, and Linda Seidel. Romanesque Sculpture in American Collections: Volume 2, New York and New Jersey, Middle and South Atlantic States, the Midwest, Western and Pacific States. Turnhout: Brepols, 1999. p. 12.
Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Lisbeth, and Jack Soultanian. Italian Medieval Sculpture in The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Cloisters. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2010. no. 22, pp. 93–96.
Le Pogam, Pierre-Yves. "Collectionner la sculpture médiévale italienne." In Il Medioevo dopo il Medioevo: Iconografie, tipologie e modelli. Atti del convegno internazionale di studi (Lecce, 10-12 maggio 2012), edited by Raffaele Casciaro. Monteroni di Lecce: Edizioni Esperidi, 2016. pp. 278–80, fig. 1–2.
Jean de Liège (Franco-Netherlandish, active ca. 1361–died 1381)
ca. 1381
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