Saint Libera

In 1519 the Veronese painter Paolo Morando painted this statue's mantle blue, when she was already more than 150 years old. Look into the deep folds and the earlier colour still shows through. It was red, worn over a green dress with gilded trim. The rest of her original paint has survived better than on any other statue in these rooms, the museum says, down to the pink of her skin, the black pupils and the red of her lips.

She comes from the church of Santi Siro e Libera, built over the ruins of Verona's Roman theatre. Her hair is gathered into two long plaits, and knotted ribbons carry them on down to the ground. The museum treats that hairstyle, and the fine ornament of her dress, as a rare record of how women dressed at the court of the Scaliger lords in the middle of the 14th century.