page_title: Saint George
section_title: George and the dragon
hierarchical_section_title: Saint George / Legend / George and the dragon
caption_attribution_description: English: miniature of St George and the Dragon, Verona second half of 13th century. (Manoscritto membranaceo; mm 240 x 170; ff. 41, una carta perduta fra le attuali 35-36; scrittura gotica libraria; 78 vignette istoriate diffuse nel testo), Seconda metà del secolo XIII, Nota di possesso a c. 3 "Est sancte Magdalene de Campo Martio de Verona". Acquistato dalla Biblioteca Civica nel 1881.[1]) [2]
context_page_description: Saint George, also George of Lydda, was a Christian who is accepted as a saint in Christianity and Islam. According to traditional rumors, he was a soldier in the Roman army. His parents were Christians of Greek origin. His father, Gerontius, was a Cappadocian serving in the Roman army. His mother Polikronya was a Christian from the city of Lod in Palestine. Saint George was a soldier of Cappadocian Greek origins, member of the Praetorian Guard for Roman emperor Diocletian, who was sentenced to death for refusing to recant his Christian faith. He became one of the most venerated saints and megalomartyrs in Christianity, and he has been especially venerated as a military saint since the Crusades.
  In hagiography, as one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers and one of the most prominent military saints, he is immortalised in the legend of Saint George and the Dragon. His memorial, Saint George's Day, is traditionally celebrated on 23 April.
  England, Ethiopia, Georgia, and the Autonomous Communities of Catalonia and Aragon in Spain, and several other nation states, cities, universities, professions and organisations all claim George as their patron.
context_section_description: The legend of Saint George and the Dragon was first recorded in the 11th century, in a Georgian source.
  It reached Catholic Europe in the 12th century. In the Golden Legend, by 13th-century Archbishop of Genoa Jacobus da Varagine, George's death was at the hands of Dacian, and about the year 287.
  The tradition tells that a fierce dragon was causing panic at the city of Silene, Libya, at the time George arrived there. In order to prevent the dragon from devastating people from the city, they gave two sheep each day to the dragon, but when the sheep were not enough they were forced to sacrifice humans instead of the two sheep. The human to be sacrificed was elected by the city's own people and one time the king's daughter was chosen to be sacrificed but no one was willing to take her place. George saved the girl by slaying the dragon with a lance. The king was so grateful that he offered him treasures as a reward for saving his daughter's life, but George refused it and instead he gave these to the poor. The people of the city were so amazed at what they had witnessed that they became Christians and were all baptized.
  The Golden Legend offered a historicised narration of George's encounter with a dragon.
  This account was very influential and it remains the most familiar version in English owing to William Caxton's 15th-century translation.
  In the mediaeval romances, the lance with which George slew the dragon was called Ascalon, after the Levantine city of Ashkelon, today in Israel. The name Ascalon was used by Winston Churchill for his personal aircraft during World War II, according to records at Bletchley Park. In Sweden, the princess rescued by George is held to represent the kingdom of Sweden, while the dragon represents an invading army. Several sculptures of George battling the dragon can be found in Stockholm, the earliest inside Storkyrkan ("The Great Church") in the Old Town. Iconography of the horseman with spear overcoming evil was widespread throughout the Christian period.
caption: Miniature from a 13th-century Passio Sancti Georgii (Verona)
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