Saturday, July 28, 2012
Mystery of the Lady: Solved
Vienna. On a recent post, Stone Lace, I failed to identify a statue on Stephansdom and received a request from loyal follower, Taken For Granted, to provide the story behind the lady. According to one of the cathedral's guides, it's a statue of Catherine of Luxembourg who married Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria in 1357. Rudolf expanded the cathedral and the statue of his wife depicts her holding a mace and standing on a "dragon." Here's another view of her.
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Endlessly fascinating cathedral!
ReplyDeleteYes, always something to discover about its long history.
DeleteThank you for answering my question. I thought she might be someone of interest and she is. Always been attracted to women who stand on dragons.
DeleteHa! From ground level, the animal Catherine is standing on looks much like a huge rat. We had a bit of difficulty understanding the man who told us about Catherine and the dragon but we think he said she was sculpted in the style of Mary, mother of Christ, who had killed a dragon and women were commonly portrayed in this manner. So thanks for prompting me to do the research.
DeleteYou may be interested to know the city of Brno, Czech Republic, has a legend about a dragon terrorizing the town some centuries ago...but the dragon they have on display at their town hall is what we now call an alligator, and a cartoon-ized alligator has become the town mascot in recent years. Their American-style football team is the Brno Alligators. So yesterday's dragons may be today's alligators.