Vittore Carpaccio's Saint George and the Dragon was part of a painting cycle that was commissioned in 1502 by the Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni.

The Schiavoni (meaning "Slavs" in the Venetian dialect and referred specifically to the Dalmatians from the Dalmatia region of modern day Croatia) commissioned the Scuola deli Cycle during the time of the Ottoman wars in Europe.

[1] The painting cycle is still housed today in its originally-intended location of the Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schivoni in Venice, Italy.

[1] The painting was commissioned to tell the story of how Saint George liberated the fictionalized pagan city of Silene, in Libya, from the deadly dragon.

[1] The scene of Saint George's lance piercing through the dragon's head symbolizes the victory of the Christian soldier defeating the infidel in this case Islam.

[2] The three paintings of St. George convey a fairy tale element that may have been inspired by the medieval French romances traveling through Venice at the time.

The arid terrain of a desert, with a few bunches of herbs, is covered with the remains of the dragon's victims: the scrawny stump of a woman, a half-devoured dress, a man with amputated limbs, a severed foot and arm, skulls and bones, both of animals and humans; this depiction of desolation and death is furthered supported by the inclusion of various lizards, snakes, and frogs scattered throughout the foreground.

[4] Just above the water on the left side of the painting, sits the fictional city Seline just past a bridge that symbolically connects civilization to nature.