The Scythians: nomad goldsmiths of the open steppes; The ...

TREASURES
OF
WORLD ART
Greece
The saint with a dog's head
There are many legends about St. Christopher, including one that he once carried Christ across a
river, thus earning his name (Christofàros in Greek, meaning ''bearer of Christ"). According to some
accounts he was a giant with a dog's face, only receiving human features at baptism. Other stories
relate that St. Christopher, an exceptionally good-looking man who lived in the 3rd century,
received such frequent attentions from the fair sex that he begged God to save him from temptation.
His prayer was answered by a miracle: from then on women who looked upon his handsome face
saw only the head of a dog. St. Christopher was thus often depicted with a dog's head, as in
this fresco painted in 1779 by a Greek artist in a 13th-century Byzantine church at Lindos, on
the island of Rhodes.
Photo O Hannibal Slides. Athens