Georgsaltar

Around 1400 the crossbowmen of Valencia, a proud civic militia known as the Centenar de la Ploma, ordered this enormous altarpiece for their meeting hall. It stood more than six metres tall. Most of its panels tell the familiar legend of their patron, Saint George, rescuing a princess from the dragon and being armed as a knight by the Virgin and her angels. But one large scene shows something real and local instead: the Battle of El Puig of 1237, when Valencia was taken from Muslim rule. The painter is usually named as Marzal de Sas, a northerner working in the city, though even that attribution has never been certain.