O Martírio de São Jorge

This towering altarpiece, well over four metres tall, still stands where Paolo Veronese put it, on the high altar of the church of San Giorgio in Braida in Verona. Veronese had made his career in Venice, but he was back in Verona, his home town, around the time he painted it, having returned to marry Elena, the daughter of his old teacher. The scene shows Saint George in the moment before his execution, refusing to bow to a statue of the pagan god Apollo, which you can see toppling at the left, while the Virgin and saints look down from a bank of cloud above. During the First World War the canvas was taken down and sent to Florence to keep it safe from bombing, then brought home to Verona once the fighting stopped.