St. Scholastica

18th century
Polychrome relief
Museum of the Church of San Paio (St. Pelagius)
Santiago de Compostela, Spain

St. Scholastica is pictured in a nun's habit and with three attributes associated with her vitae. In her right hand is the crozier that signifies her status as an abbess. On her left hand are a book and a dove. Her brother St. Benedict became aware of her death when he had a vision of a dove flying up to Heaven. The book would refer to the monastic rule that Benedict provided her when he set her up in her hermitage. When other women later came to Scholastica to join in her contemplative life, she adapted that rule to the new community (Acta Sanctorum, February vol. 404).

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Photographed at the museum by Richard Stracke, shared under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.