Santa Maria Maggiore


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High on the wall is a 15th century double-decker monument which used to be at the other end of the aisle before being moved here probably by Fuga. It commemorates the French brothers Cardinal Philippe de Lévis (1475), and Archbishop Eustache de Lévis (1485). They had been bishops in succession of the see of Arles. The monument has four storeys. Firstly there is the epitaph of Eustache, flanked by two copies of the de Lévis shield. Then comes the recumbent effigy of Eustache, flanked by plinths having little statues in niches. The one on the left is St Catherine of Alexandria, that on the right is St Eustace. The effigy itself has an epigraph added, explaining that the monument is to two brother bishops. Above a dividing cornice is the effigy of Philippe, and finally his epitaph below another shield and a sheltering archivolt. It is known that the shield replaced a lost mosaic of Our Lady. Philippe and his epitaph is flanked by four stacked plinths containing little statues of allegorical figures of Prudence, Justice, Temperance and Fortitude. The identity of the sculptor is unknown.