Crozier Head with Double Volute

Resembling shepherds’ crooks, croziers were the attributes of bishops as well as some abbots and abbesses of the Western Church. The beveled volute assumes the form of a tightly curled serpentine body terminating in the head of a horned beast with a wide, flat snout. Although the creature’s face is worn and lacks detail, similar ivory croziers attributed to twelfth- and thirteenth-century Sicily and southern Italy feature identifiable creatures like gazelles, gryphons, and Lambs of God at the center. The horned creature from the so-called staff of St. Emmeram, for example, resembles a gazelle (Regensburg, Cathedral Treasury, acc. no. 1982-5). In their original forms, both examples were probably configured like the crozier associated with Saint Godehard (Hildesheim, Dom-Museum, acc. no. DS 74), whose beveled, double volute terminates in a clearly-articulated gazelle head with a Greek cross issuing from its mouth. Several examples from this group include these distinctive crosses, which served the practical function of stabilizing the volutes’ open interior. Other connective elements in the form of small open circles are evenly spaced at the top, bottom, and sides of the volute of The Met’s crozier head, while a larger foliate element connects its lower edge to the base of the crozier.

The Met’s crozier head was carved from a single panel of elephant ivory that, because of its density, thickness, and width, would have been sourced near the center of the base of the tusk (Rutgers 1989). The vertical orientation of the ivory’s grain patterns, which concentrate on the sides, indicates that it was cut longitudinally close to the nerve canal (ibid). The hole at the base of this crozier head would have secured it either to an ornamental knob (or "knop") or to a long staff made of ivory, wood, or bone.

By the twelfth century, established trade networks across the Sahara and the Mediterranean kept ivory carvers in Sicily and southern Italy well stocked with the tusks of African elephants (Guérin 2013). Perry Blythe Cott was among the first to identify the iconographic and stylistic affinities between the so-called "Siculo-Arabic" ivories, hypothesizing that images of gazelles served as models for the Lamb of God. Cott and other scholars assumed that the craftspeople were Muslims active during Norman rule, in part because gazelles are more commonly found in Islamic Art during this period (Galan y Galindo 2005; The Met 2013). Angel Galan y Galindo further argues that they were produced by Greek artists active in the region of Syracuse. While the proliferation of ivory carving in Sicily and southern Italy is well-attested through the material record, the carvers’ ethnic and religious identities as well as the organizational structure of their workshops are not documented in medieval texts.

The imaginative transformation of medieval crozier heads into serpentine and dragon-like creatures evoke precedents from the Hebrew Bible. According to the Book of Exodus, Chapter 7, the staff carried by Aaron, brother of Moses, turned into a live serpent when cast at Pharaoh’s feet, devouring those of Pharaoh’s entourage. Moses also erected a bronze serpent according to God’s command, healing the Israelites who gazed upon it (Numbers 21:6–9). For medieval Christians, the miraculous animation of lifeless matter in both biblical episodes exemplified the supremacy and salvific power of God. The biblical leaders who commanded these staffs likewise served as exemplars for the qualities of leadership and devotion to which medieval clerics aspired.

Related Readings:

Archer St. Clair and Elizabeth Parker McLachlan, eds, The Carver's Art: Medieval Sculpture in Ivory, Bone, and Horn (New Brunswick, N.J.: Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, 1989), no. 50, pp. 87–91.


Angel Galan y Galindo, Marfiles Medievales del Islam: Volume 2, Catálogo de Piezas (Cordoba: Publicaciones Obra Social Y Cultural Cajasur, 2005), pp. 454-460.

Michael Brandt, Peter Barnet, Gerhard Lutz, eds. Medieval Treasures from Hildesheim (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2013), p. 57, cat. no. 14.


Sarah M. Gueìrin, "Forgotten Routes? Italy, Ifrīqiya and the Trans-Saharan Ivory Trade," Al-Masaq: Islam and the Medieval Mediterranean 2013 (25:1), pp. 70–91.


Catalogue Entry by Nicole D. Pulichene, Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial and Research Collections Specialist, Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters, 2020–2022

Georges Hoentschel (French)(sold 1911); J. Pierpont Morgan (American), London and New York (1911–1913); Estate of J. Pierpont Morgan, New York (1913–1917)

Mount Holyoke College Art Museum. "Monsters, Gargoyles, and Dragons: Animals in the Middle Ages," February–March 1977.

Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University. "The Carver's Art: Medieval Sculpture in Ivory, Bone, and Horn," September 9-November 21, 1989.

Pératé, André. Collections Georges Hoentschel: Ivoires, orfèvrerie religieuse, pierres. Vol. 2. Paris: Librairie Centrale des Beaux-Arts, 1911. no. 30, fig. XXIV.

Breck, Joseph. "Pre-Gothic Ivories in the Pierpont Morgan Collection." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, o.s., 15, no. 1 (January 1920). p. 16.

Longhurst, Margaret H. Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory. Vol. 1. London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1927. p. 59.

Breck, Joseph, and Meyric R. Rogers. The Pierpont Morgan Wing: A Handbook. 2nd ed. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1929. p. 50.

Cott, Perry Blythe. Siculo-Arabic Ivories. Princeton: Princeton University, 1939. no. 157, p. 54, pl. 62.

Bárány-Oberschall, Magda von. "Contributi alla tipologia dei pasterali in osso dei secoli XIII-XIV." Corvina 26, no. 1 (1953). p. 27, pl. I.2.

Monsters, Gargoyles, and Dragons: Animals in the Middle Ages. South Hadley, Mass.: Mount Holyoke College, 1977. no. 34, p. 22.

St. Clair, Archer, and Elizabeth Parker McLachlan, ed. The Carver's Art: Medieval Sculpture in Ivory, Bone, and Horn. New Brunswick, N.J.: Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, 1989. no. 50, pp. 87, 90–91.

Galán y Galindo, Ángel. Marfiles Medievales del Islam: Volume 2, Catálogo de Piezas. Cordoba: Publicaciones Obra Social Y Cultural Cajasur, 2005. no. 43017, pp. 457, 519.