Small column

The column with reduced proportions is a commemorative item – an example of a formerly popular antiquité-type object. Its small form allows the spectator to take it along. In the solitude of rooms or private collections, they revived the memory of preserved historic objects that may have been watched by buyers earlier. An unusual example of this type of object is a diminished copy of Moses – Michelangelo’s famous sculpture from the Church of San Pietro in Vincoli, which has been preserved in the Wilanów collection under the inventory number Wil.3703. The 73.5 cm high fluted column is supported on a cuboid plinth with a profiled square base on whose four walls there are panels with inscriptions. The column is topped with a Corinthian capital, on which a proportionate fragment of the entablature is placed. The inscriptions located in the plinth panels are engraved in majuscule in Latin, and their content refers to the history of the original column (i.e., Mary’s column). It was a column originating from the Basilica of Maxenthius, which Pope Paul V from the Borghese family (pontificate 1605–1621) ordered to be put on the square in front of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in 1614. At the top of the column, a bronze figure presenting the Blessed Virgin Mary is placed. The column is made of marble, and its presence in the Wilanów collection is recorded by an inventory drawn up by Georges Duchesne in 1895 (George Duchesne, Catalogues des tableaux objects d’art et d’ameublement qui se trouvent au palais de Willanow, pres de Varsovie, appartenant a Monsieur le Comte Xawier Branicki).

On one of the plinth sides, there is a text summarising the symbolism of the act of foundation by Pope Paul V: VASTA COLUMNAM MOLE QUAE STETIT DIU PACIS PROFANA IN AEDE PAULUS TRASTULIT IN ESQUILINUM QUINTUS ET SANCTISSIMAE PAX UNDE VERA EST CONSECRAVIT VIRGINI (This huge column, which had stood in the pagan Temple of Peace, was transferred to the Esquilline Hill and consecrated to the Blessed Ever Virgin Mary. There has been real peace since then.)

Inscriptions translated by: A. Wyderko