5) 1866 – Dario Querci – Saint George and the Dragon (San Giorgio)
Two years later, in 1866, again through Baron Corrado Arezzo, Querci was entrusted with the canvas of St. George and the Dragon(oil on canvas, 460 by 320 centimetres) for the price of 200 onze. The saint is represented in the center of the painting, dressed in shiny medieval armor, on a rearing white horse, while he is about to kill the dragon with a spear from whose mouth flames of fire come out and surrounded by the remains of human victims. The Princess of Berito is on the left kneeling; on the right in the background you can see a castle with a circular tower; a small cross in the sky.
The episode that narrates how the Chapter of San Giorgio forced the painter to remove the Saint's mustache, given his young age based on his hagiography, falls within the ambit of anecdotal. Dario Querci was born in Messina in 1831.
After an initial training in Messina at Panebianco he moved to Rome where he came into contact with purist painters. Politically involved, he took part in the Expedition of the Thousand. In 1973 he became adjunct professor of drawing at the Royal Institute of Fine Arts in Rome. He died in Rome in 1918.
Querci's work replaces a canvas of San Giorgio which may have been moved to another altar of which we have lost traces.
Any moved canvas could be that of Glory of St. George del Tresca made in 1787. We know that in 1788 the Palermo cabinetmaker Antonio Rosso obtained the commission from the Priest, Giovan Battista Monelli, to make a frame for the cost of fourteen onze of similar design to the frame of the painting of Saint Nicholas
