Benedictine Sculpturing 4: the Craft Tools

Posted by Illuci (Hurdegaryp, Netherlands) on 14 March 2008 in Art & Design.

Here you see the four patron saints of the (R.C.) masons, each with their tool that are usually pictured together with their image. They are known as the Quattuor Coronati (the Four Crowned Ones), also often erroneously spelled as "Quatuor Coronati" (with one t in the first word). You can read their story on a Freemason's website here. Of course the Freemasons adopted them also as important role models for their members, but Benedictine munks have nothing to do with Freemasons. I was surprised by seeing them in this monasterial workshop, bearing the symbols of our relation to the Creator (the compass), the right angle in which we should deal with others (the square) and the hammer, the symbol of decisiveness and persistence.

The Four Crowned Ones are "worshipped" for their persistence in refusing to make a statue of a ruling Roman emperor to be worshipped, because only God is worth to be worshipped. For this "crime" they became tortured and killed, their bodies were thrown in the Tiber, the river flowing through Rome.

Photo with courtesy to the abbey of Benedictusberg, Vaals.

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