 Earlier large figures of Christ on the Cross appear to have been in metal, or metal on a wooden core; there was said to be one in Charlemagne's Palatine Chapel in Aachen, and the Golden Madonna of Essen is an example of this type.The development of a tradition of free-standing monumental sculpture was a crucial development in Western art; in Byzantine art such images were and are avoided.The cross has always been in Cologne Cathedral; it now hangs in its own chapel near the sacristy – now a different, Gothic, building from the one it was made for.