Saints and Dragons

Oftentimes, dragons in Medieval art and storytelling were not actually dragons, but symbols for something else. For instance, in the stories of “military saints,” dragons often represented real historical figures that the saints had defeated in battle in the name of Christianity (Pancaroğlu). In other versions, the dragon would act as stand in for the devil or a demonic being sent by Satan to challenge the saint’s purity or belief (Petroff). In this exhibit, I am looking at different depictions of dragons in conjunction with four different saints and their stories. Specifically, I am interested in the differences between how male and female saints are shown to interact with the dragons they face and how this alters the dragon’s symbolism.