Image:Detail from Carlo Crivelli, 'Saint Michael', about 1476
Saint Michael is the patron saint of banking as well as of grocers and the police.
Saint Michaellead the angelic forces against Satan to expel him and his followers from heaven (Revelation 12:7-9).
Carlo Crivelli, Saint Michael, about 1476
In his hand are the scales with which he weighs the souls of the dead so that they can be consigned to heaven or hell. The scales suggest his link with bankers or grocers weighing goods or money.
Explore more images of Saint Michael in the collection
This fragment comes from a large painting in fresco – a technique that involved painting directly onto wet plaster – that showed the fall of Lucifer, the rebel angel who was cast out of heaven. It once decorated a wall of the church of the confraternity of Sant' Angelo in Arezzo. There are two ot...
Not on display
The Archangel Michael led an army of angels to battle against the devil and cast him down from heaven (Revelation 12: 9). Piero shows him as a beautiful, youthful soldier. He clutches the severed head of the devil, represented as a snake with pointy ears.The panel was part of a polyptych (multi-p...
