Gipsmodellen voor beeldhouwwerken op het Palais du Louvre: links "Suger" door Nicolas Bernard Raggi en rechts "De Thou" door Auguste Louis Deligand c. 1855 - 1857

Edouard Baldus captured these plaster models for sculptures at the Palais du Louvre in this photograph. On the left stands "Suger," holding a book, a symbol that extends far beyond mere literacy. Consider how books appear in medieval art as emblems of wisdom and divine knowledge, a tradition passed down through illuminated manuscripts to Renaissance portraiture. The book, as a symbolic object, transforms; from religious scripture to secular knowledge, from a sacred object to a tool of humanist inquiry. The act of holding a book, thus, embodies the intellectual and spiritual authority. This motif, however, is not static. As cultural contexts evolve, so does the book's symbolic power. The collective memory of its significance continues to engage viewers, evoking a spectrum of meanings, from scholarly pursuit to profound spiritual insight. It is this cyclical return and reinterpretation of symbols that reveal the complex layering of cultural memory.