Orlandov stup, Dubrovnik

Orlando’s Column is a stone public sculpture showing a medieval knight with his sword raised. It is Dubrovnik’s oldest surviving public sculpture, and it remained for a long time the city’s sole secular monument dedicated to an individual. Columns of this kind are associated with Germany; outside Germany, only four such monuments exist, including this one.

Bonino da Milano, an Italian Gothic sculptor, made the replacement column erected in 1418, although Antun Dubrovčanin is also credited by some. The knight’s forearm provided the measure for the Dubrovnik cubit, which equals 51.2 cm. A storm brought the column down on 6 January 1825, and it returned to the square in 1878. Today, the Libertas flag is raised here to open the Dubrovnik Summer Festival each year.