of St. Michael's in 1650 and the resulting collapse of the east crossing, the column's capital, which "weighed about a hundred pounds", was also melted down and replaced by a wooden capital of identical shape and size, meant to hide the replacement. An engraving by Johann Ludwig Brandes (1730) indicates that it was decorated with figures. Since figural capitals of this kind are otherwise only attested from the twelfth century, it has been suggested that the capital that was melted down was not the Bernwardian original either, and that this original was replaced during the renovation of the cloister church in the second half of the twelfth century. The rest of the column was not melted down in the following years (despite its value as raw material) because of its ancient significance as a contact relic, since it was believed to have been made personally by St. Bernward. In 1810, after the secularisation of the Catholic cloister (1803) and the abolition of the Protestant parish of St. Michael's (1810), the column was removed on the private initiative of diocese officials and installed in the north of the Domhof between the cathedral and the Bishop's house. In 1870 the Hildesheim sculptor Karl Küsthardt gave the column a new bronze capital, which was meant to imitate the wooden capital or an illustration of it and to indirectly preserve the appearance of the old bronze capital, which had supported an impost topped by a bronze crucifix. In 1893 it was moved into the cathedral. On 30 September 2009 it was moved back to St. Michael's for the duration of the cathedral renovations, which lasted until August 2014. Description The Bernward column, which is high and in diameter, is a victory column that Bernward had cast from bronze in conscious imitation of the marble Trajan's Column and the Column of Marcus Aurelius in Rome. Just as those stone columns depict the military deeds of the Emperor in an upward spiralling frieze, so the Bernward column depicts the peaceful deeds of Christ, beginning with his baptism at the Jordan and ending with his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The column was originally crowned with a triumphal cross. The column is significant for the vitality of the figural relief, which is unusual for the time. The relief complements the Bernward Doors, which picture the Nativity, Passion, and resurrection of Jesus. Both artworks, like the rest of Bernward's