ROMANESQUE PAINTER, Italian
(active 1090s in Lombardy)

The Fight with the Dragon

c. 1090
Fresco
San Pietro al Monte, Civate

The fresco on the eastern wall of the entrance porch of San Pietro al Monte near Civate is one of the most important Italian contribution to Romanesque painting. It illustrates chapter 12 of the Apocalypse: beneath the mandorla containing Christ in Majesty we see the writhing body of a dragon of gigantic proportions. Fighting the monster is the heavenly host, led by the Archangel Michael.