Dragon - San Pedro de Arlanza (MET)

After 1200. From a room above the chapter house of the [Monastery of San Pedro de Arlanza](https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monasterio_de_San_Pedro_de_Arlanza), near Hortigüela, Burgos, Spain (sold by the government in the nineteenth century). The Cloisters Collection, 1931. MET, New York City. Tail coiled, claws extended, and feet braced, this dragon is a powerful counterpart to the lion opposite. Medieval beasts, whether real or imaginary, were often imbued with symbolic meaning, as they are in animal fables today. It is not always possible, however, to reconstruct their specific intention in a given monument, and such beasts could be for “aesthetic delight,” as one thirteenth-century archbishop commented. The monastery from which this fresco comes was abandoned in 1841.