Saint James

Saint James was the apostle whose tomb at Santiago de Compostela, in the far north-west of Spain, drew pilgrims from all over Europe through the Middle Ages. A Veronese workshop cut this figure of him in pear wood, a dense, fine-grained timber that holds sharp detail. The museum points to the face, framed by hair worked in separate locks and a finely carved beard, with the original paint still on it. It describes the saint as dressed in the manner of humanist classicism, the taste for the antique that scholars and artists of the time shared.

The name of the carver has changed. The museum's room sheet of 2024 gave the statue to Giovanni Zebellana. Its 2026 text calls it recently attributed to Leonardo da Verona, and that is the name it now carries.