George, Saint, Martyr

GEORGE, Saint, Martyr. - Venerated since antiquity both in the East and in the West. The sanctuary built over his tomb at Lydda (Diospolis) in Palestine, a destination of frequent pilgrimages from the 4th century onward (CSEL, 39, p. 139, 176; see p. 288 ff.), still existed in the 9th century. Unfortunately, such great veneration does not correspond to certain information about the life and martyrdom of the Saint. His personality is unknown, so much so that attempts have been made to identify him with one or another of the martyrs attested by authentic sources: with the anonymous young man who tore down the edict of Diocletian's persecution at Nicomedia (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., VIII, 5), with Elpidius, a martyr of Mesopotamia venerated on the same day as G., and even with the Arian bishop of Alexandria of the same name who perished in a popular riot under Julian the Apostate (Socrates, Hist. eccl., III, 3).

The "dies natalis," recorded in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum on 23 April, derives from the indication of the Passio. This is quite ancient and certainly existed in the 5th century, since it is mentioned and proscribed in the famous pseudo-Gelasian decree De libris recipiendis; but it is absolutely fabulous and fantastic. Over the centuries various recensions of it were made, which gradually transformed it, stripping it of clearly suspect passages and enriching it with arbitrarily chosen historical elements; there are also many versions from the Greek original, in Latin, Coptic, Armenian, etc.

According to the oldest recension, G. was a native of Cappadocia, but lived in Palestine, where he was a military tribune. When the persecution of Diocletian broke out, he distributed his goods to the poor and openly professed himself a Christian. Brought before the Emperor, he was invited to sacrifice; he refused energetically and was therefore, after being tortured, shut up in prison, forced to spend the night with a large stone on his belly. There he had a vision from God announcing a long series of torments that would last for fully 7 years, during which he would die and rise again three times. The prediction came true exactly, and G. suffered terrible martyrdoms, always emerging unharmed, until he was finally beheaded. The insipid narrative was supposedly written by a certain Pasicrates, an eyewitness. At the time of the Crusades the cult of G. greatly increased, since he had been chosen as patron of chivalry, and numerous churches and monasteries were erected in his honor. From the same time there was disseminated in the West the famous episode of the maiden exposed to a dragon and freed by the intervention of G. It probably arose from the false interpretation of an image of Constantine existing in Constantinople (Vita, III, 3: PG 20, 1058) connected with a passage of the panegyric that St. Andrew of Crete delivered in honor of G. (ibid., 87, 1189).

Agostino Amore

ICONOGRAPHY

In depictions of the Saint, from as early as the 10th century in the Christian East, he appears young, beardless and without any special attribute, generally accompanied by St. Demetrius. As time went on, the depiction of St. George in a cuirass and with a marked heroic characterization became more frequent, and he was often placed among other warrior saints. The Sicilian mosaic depictions of the 12th century (Cefalù, Monreale, the Palatine Chapel of Palermo) depend on the Byzantine iconographic model.

Depictions of the Saint on horseback, in the act of killing a dragon, appear in the European West from as early as the 12th century. This model was followed especially by late Gothic French and German art and by the Italian Renaissance. As prototypes one may cite: besides some sculptures in the Museum of Lübeck, the two panels by Paolo Uccello, one in the Lanckoronski collection in Vienna, the other in the Jacquemart André collection in Paris; the panel by Francia in the Corsini Gallery in Rome and the small panel in the Louvre, an early work of Raphael.

The art of the Italian Renaissance, however, sometimes depicts him standing, armed and in a cuirass, omitting the dragon, as in Donatello's statue for the tabernacle of Orsanmichele, now in the Bargello Museum in Florence, or making him stand out behind the slain monster, as in the small panel in the Academy of Venice, by the hand of Mantegna. Thus too did Dürer's engraving of 1514 depict him.

The entire legend of St. George was frescoed in 1377 by Jacopo degli Avanzi in the basilica of the Santo in Padua, and in 1505 by Vittore Carpaccio in S. Giorgio degli Schiavoni in Venice. By the same painter there also remains a predella of the altarpiece of S. Giorgio Maggiore in Venice, with Stories of the Saint.

FOLKLORE

"Among the saints of antiquity none has equaled the glory of St. G. His fame has spread to all parts of the Christian world: East and West have celebrated him with enthusiasm in prose and in verse, in every tongue" (Delehaye). The material that folklore offers is therefore extraordinarily rich, both for the legend and for the popular cult.

As regards the development of the legend, Delehaye himself acknowledges that it "renferme un grand nombre d'éléments empruntés au folklore": it must be noted, however, that popular tradition ignores, as a rule, the entire first part of the Saint's life and concentrates the narrative on the single episode of the dragon, which, as is well known, appears quite late in the hagiographic texts. This episode has inspired numerous popular songs in the various countries of Europe and especially of the Slavic world. In Italy, an "orazione" in epic hendecasyllables of notable force and beauty is widespread from Romagna to Calabria in numerous variants: it reveals sure connections with a Venetian poem, still unpublished, preserved at the National Library of Paris (mss. it. 1069, fol. 100-111). A Tuscan poem in octaves, from the fifteenth century, is preserved in early printed editions and was reproduced several times: it unfolds the entire legend of the Saint as given by Jacopo da Varazze. Various lyric-narrative laude draw on the same source, one preserved in a Tuscan laudario of the early fourteenth century (Cod. magliabechiano 11-1-22), another composed by Feo Belcari, and yet another by Francesco di Albizzo. In the Florentine theater of the Renaissance there was more than one sacra rappresentazione inspired by St. G., also because a quarter of the city was dedicated to him and the Compagnia di S. G. had the task of commemorating his miraculous deeds each year: sometimes the re-enactment was carried out by means of a processional cart with the "dragon that spewed fire from its mouth, from its tail and from other parts, and behind it will follow the daughter of the king of Libya on a white nag."

The popular cult of St. G. is very ancient: it arose around the tomb of the warrior martyr transformed into a sanctuary, at Lydda, on the road to Jerusalem, already in the century it was widespread in Sicily, in Italy and even in the Gauls: at Rome, Belisarius invoked him as defender of the Porta S. Sebastiano. The cult thus has Eastern origins, and in the West it was revived with the Crusades. For some time the Dardanelles were called the strait of St. G. Various nations, regions and cities have him as patron; such as, for example, England (from 1222, Synod of Oxford), Portugal, Catalonia and Aragon, Georgia, Lithuania.

Genoa, which likewise venerates him as protector, has named its Banco after him: Venice has dedicated three churches to him, distinguished for works of art: in Italy there are 118 municipalities that bear the Saint's name, scattered everywhere: famous is the vernacular inscription (1135) of the cathedral of Ferrara dedicated to him. Countless are the churches and chapels dedicated to the Saint: many of them are destinations of pilgrimages and objects of particular forms of popular cult.

The date of the feast, which falls on April 23, marks for the common people of many European countries the beginning of spring, with all the related customs and manifestations of an agrarian and propitiatory character, similar to those that occur for Calendimaggio. Among the Slavs of Carinthia the young men adorn a tree with flowers and carry it in procession amid songs of joy and music; the principal figure of the procession is the "green G.", a boy dressed in foliage, who at the end is thrown into the water, with the intention of ensuring rain for the hay and the crops; often the boy is replaced at the last moment by a puppet. Similar customs are found in some districts of Russia, as among the gypsies of Transylvania and Romania, who attribute to the flowered tree powers effective against illnesses or favorable to childbirth. In many other countries too, St. G. is invoked as a healer; in France and Germany the waters of many fountains dedicated to him are held to be miraculous. Protector of knights, he is also protector of horses and, in general, of livestock. In Germany and in the Slavic countries he is invoked as a powerful enemy of witches. As the killer of the dragon he also protects against reptiles. It is believed that in some countries his cult replaced that of previous pagan spring divinities: in Lithuania the god Pergrubius, in Georgia (where the feast is celebrated on August 14) the god Lano. Comparisons, though arbitrary, have also been made with the Egyptian god Horus and the Indian Shiva.

In Italy these spring and agrarian aspects of the popular cult of St. G. have almost entirely disappeared; indeed in many regions his feast passes unnoticed: but notable traces are preserved in Sardinia and in northern Italy, from Piedmont to Istria.

Paolo Toschi