Pierre Le Gros’s Statue of Stanislaus Kostka in the Church of Saint Andrew on the Quirinal, Rome

This sculpture, the equal of Bernini's finest works and a flawless example of Roman Baroque, was made in 1703 by the Frenchman Pierre Le Gros: a sculpted portrait of Saint Stanislaus Kostka, the blessed patron of Poland and of lay servants of the Church. It is not the best-known sight of Rome, although it stands in the centre, in the church of Sant'Andrea al Quirinale. One has the feeling that some lot of obscurity has befallen this true masterpiece. And yet there is something in common with the fate of Kostka himself, a youth of the sixteenth century venerated as a saint, who had no time to accomplish anything in life, lived an ordinary existence and saw very little, but nevertheless managed to attain holiness in that everyday being. His story is a simple one: a student from a distinguished Polish family fell gravely ill far from home and was denied the sacrament of the Eucharist by a landlord of another faith; at night Saint Barbara appeared to him, and then the Mother of God, and he recovered, after which he made his way on foot to Germany, where he joined the Jesuit order, but soon died, at the age of only 18