Column Statue of Saint Hilary of Galeata

Column Statue of Saint Hilary of Galeata

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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.

Medieval Art and The Cloisters

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Column Statue of Saint Hilary of GaleataColumn Statue of Saint Hilary of GaleataColumn Statue of Saint Hilary of GaleataColumn Statue of Saint Hilary of GaleataColumn Statue of Saint Hilary of Galeata

The Museum's collection of medieval and Byzantine art is among the most comprehensive in the world. Displayed in both The Met Fifth Avenue and in the Museum's branch in northern Manhattan, The Met Cloisters, the collection encompasses the art of the Mediterranean and Europe from the fall of Rome in the fourth century to the beginning of the Renaissance in the early sixteenth century. It also includes pre-medieval European works of art created during the Bronze Age and early Iron Age.