page_title: St. Peter's Church, Straubing
section_title: Structure
hierarchical_section_title: St. Peter's Church, Straubing / Structure
caption_attribution_description: St. Peter, Straubing, South Portal.
context_page_description: St. Peter's Church, Straubing, is a Romanesque basilica in Straubing, Germany. It was built in the second half of the 12th century, and is distinguished by its two sculpted portals. The surrounding graveyard contains a number of funeral chapels, most notably the Totenkapelle, which is decorated with a cycle of paintings depicting the Totentanz by the Rococo artist Felix Hözl.
context_section_description: St. Peter's is a three-aisled pillar basilica with three apses, and a two-towered western facade. The arcades between the side aisles and the nave rest on rectangular masonry pillars, whose decoration is not original to the building, but was added in the course of the 19th-century restorations.
  
  Two portals provide access to the building, one from the west and one from the south. The tympanum of the west portal portrays a knight, armed with sword and shield, battling a dragon. The head of a man, whom the dragon has swallowed, is visible between its jaws. The representation may allude to the words of Psalm 35/34: 
  Take hold of shield and buckler, and stand up for mine help. Draw out also the spear, and stop the way against them that persecute me: say unto my soul, I am thy salvation.
  The scene would therefore have Christological significance, with the words of the Psalm understood typologically to refer to Christ as a warrior against evil.
  The south portal is somewhat more mysterious. It portrays two animals, at left perhaps a griffin or another dragon, and at right a lion. The two beasts may likewise be engaged in battle. An opposition between good and evil, similar to that on the west portal, is likely intended, perhaps with reference to medieval animal stories such as those found in the Physiologus.
caption: The south portal.
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