SAINT OF THE OATH

South side Spire-G24

This young Saint gazes into the horizon, the boundary line, the final limit beyond which the human eye cannot reach, while the right hand, carried to the heart in a solemn gesture that communicates determination, indicates the close of an embrace. The young Saint seems to summon the entire city to his feet. The converging gesture of his hand symbolises an infinite embrace of the entire population. This magnificent portrait of firmness communicates the act of the young saint’s oath of faith, the promise to fulfil his duties towards both God and the city that hosts him. The basic notion of the oath is, in fact, an act or formula that invokes the divinity to witness the truthfulness of a statement. The events that led to this statue being placed on Spire G24 are still not known. We only know that it is a reproduction, whose scale model was made by Arturo Malerba, author of other statues placed on spires at the Duomo. The work was produced in 1953, the year when many other works were replaced due to damage in the marble caused by time and, especially, by the war of the previous decades.