Saint Florian – Sculpture In Swiss Pine, Alpine Work (france Or Italy) From The 17th Century

Made from a species prized by sculptors in the Alpine arc, the Swiss stone pine, our Saint Florian leaps forward in a slight contrapposto as if to spring into action. Dressed in the uniform of a Roman officer with leather armor and a toga tied over the shoulder, he wears a helmet topped with feathers. His right hand would originally have held a bucket, an attribute of the patron saint of firefighters. A few traces of plaster attest that our statue was formerly polychrome.
The legend of Saint Florian is recounted in a text from the 8th century AD, the Passio Sancti Floriani (The Passion of Saint Florian). This story is based on older writings recounting events that occurred in the 4th century, namely the persecution of Christians by the Roman Emperor Diocletian and the death of Florian in 304. Florian was a Roman officer who had secretly embraced Christianity and who lived in the province of Noricum, a region south of the Danube, in present-day Austria. The holy man, determined to save forty Christians who had just been arrested for their faith, attempted to free them. To prevent this, a platoon of soldiers intercepted him and brought him before the consul Aquilinus, who had him flogged and thrown into a river with a millstone tied to his neck. This was on May 4, 304.
Legend also relates that he saved a village from a fire with a simple prayer and by symbolically throwing a bucket of water on the flames. This is why he is associated with firefighters and all those who protect from fire, including chimney sweeps, of whom he became the patron saint. Thanks to the intervention of a certain Valeria, his body was then buried in the Abbey of Saint Florian, near Linz in Austria. And according to tradition, his remains were then transferred to Rome in 1138 where Pope Lucius III canonized him and then sent him to Poland to Duke Casimir II, who had a church built in his honor in Krakow, the parish of Saint Florian. Church in which Pope John Paul II was a priest.

Having lost its base, our sculpture is held by a custom-made blackened steel base.
Height: 93 cm