PAN 1967 MiNr1000 pm B002a

A knight in dark armor brandishes a sword as his white charger rears over a winged dragon. Fragments of a shattered lance lie scattered on the dark earth, and a small female figure runs toward a hilly landscape in the distance. This image is a reproduction of Raphael's circa 1506 painting, featured on a Panamanian postage stamp.

In the Renaissance, the motif of Saint George was frequently used as a Neoplatonic allegory for the soul's triumph over the material world and base desires. It represents the 'psychomachia,' or the internal battle between the higher intellectual soul and the lower, chaotic nature represented by the dragon.