MASTER of Cabestany
(active 1130-1180)

The Death and Martyrdom of St Saturninus (detail)

1150-80
Marble
Benedictine Abbey, Saint-Hilaire-d'Aude

The Saturninus sarcophagus in the small church of Notre-Dame-de-l'assomption in saint-Hilaire-de-l'Aude (Aude), which could alternatively be a predella, is one of the main Romanesque sculptural works in Roussillon. It narrates the martyrdom of St Sernin, the first bishop of Toulouse, in all the energetic vividness characteristic of this master's visual idiom.