ABSTRACT
This chapter will explore Saint George as image-maker and ‘mirror for princes’ through drama, paint, sculpture and print. As the purpose of this book is to explore the dissemination of Saint George's depiction across borders, this chapter will be a comparative study of the utilisation of the saint by Italian, English and Germanic princes within their courts. Saint George will emerge as a device for international communication, used to create, and then communicate, a constructed image of chivalric knight and pious ruler, through words, actions and visual culture. It will begin with a discussion of the strategies through which rulers adopted Saint George as a mirror-like avatar. It will then analyse three case studies, beginning with the Estense of Ferrara, looking at a Saint George wedding pageant played in front of Niccolò III in 1398. The second case study of King Henry VII looks at a Saint George play of 1494, a dynastic portrait, and sculpture in the Lady Chapel at Westminster Abbey. The third and final case study will explore Maximilian I through his autobiography, prints and armour.
