Saint Antonio Abate

The sculpture depicts Saint Anthony Abbot recognizable by the iconographic attributes of the stick with the bell, clasped in his left hand, and of the open book, which he holds in his right hand. At his feet, on the right, there is a little dog - an attribute that makes the saint the patronage of domestic animals, but also of farmers - while on the left foot there are some flames, with visible traces of red colour, direct reference to the fight against the devil that the saint personally brought forward in his ascetic life. The robe of Saint Anthony Abbot, typical of the hermits, is defined with a very heavy stretch and delineates with force and compactness his body, whose only movement can be traced in the imperceptible flexion of the right knee. The figure, with an expressionless face dominated by a flowing beard, is an integral part of a slab of stone decorated with mixed motifs, on which are inscribed the letters S. and A., initials of the saint and whose external frame bears traces of the original colours. The sharp and angular strokes of some parts of the dress and the slightly elongated shapes of the entire composition lead to date the work around the second half of the fifteenth century, as it is less plastic and more static than the sculptures of the two apostles Peter and Paul on display in this museum. The presence of a background slab makes it possible to hypothesise that the artefact was made as a wall decoration of one of the cathedral's side chapels or an ancient chapel dedicated to the hermit Saint documented in the city, as evidenced by the numerous similar works spread in the Apulian territory.