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The two statues (St Donatus and St Florianus) made of gilded lime-wood, one and a halftimes life-size, were at one time in the Church of Our Lady in Körmöcbánya, now demolished. The interior decoration of the church was renewed in the 1760s: the decoration of the high altar and the painting of the ceiling was undertaken by Antal Schmidt, an artist trained in Vienna, while all sculptural work was commissioned from the local master, Dionysius Stanetti. There is evidence of Stanetti's activity in the mining towns from 1743 on. He first worked at Privigye and then, between 1755 and 1764, in Selmecbánya. Stanetti, though a citizen of Körmöcbánya, was undoubtedly of foreign origin. This is evident not only from his Italian name but also because his art is linked to that of other countries. Thus his two Holy Trinity monuments are constructed after an Austrian model: the one in Körmöcbánya is similar to the monument in Baden, near Vienna, created by the Viennese court sculptor, Giovanni Stanetti. Giovanni belonged to the "first generation" of the Italian artists who settled in Austria and was evidently the master, and probably also a relative of Dionysius of Körmöcbánya. Dionysius's style was closely connected with, and perhaps superior to, the closed, heavy, classically severe, formal idiom of the monumental sculptural decoration prevalent in Vienna in the first third of the century.
St. Florianus and St. Donatus are saints from Roman times, venerated as guardians against elemental disasters. Florianus protected country dwellers and their crops against damage wrought by fire, Donatus against lightning and hailstorm. Accordingly, their statues were erected mainly in the open air, in town squares and along roads; they often appeared also on columns in honour of Our Lady and representations of the Holy Trinity. The two statues illustrated here did not therefore decorate the altar in the Körmöcbánya parish church but were placed somewhat apart from each other in the aisle of the church. The figures represent powerfully built men gesturing in a restrained manner; the heroic posture is borrowed from stone sculpture. The statues have been restored and some of the attributes are missing, for instance the flag held by Florianus and the wheat-sheaf held by Donatus.
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