Animals and Fantastic Creatures in Santa Croce

What do animals represent in works of art? Over the centuries, through a veritable anthology of iconographical attributes, creatures of all shapes and sizes have acquired a symbolic and aesthetic value in those works, ranging from heraldry and images of saints to more fantastic apparitions such as centaurs, sphynxes and unicorns. A recurring figure is that of the serpent, a mysterious animal that boasts a broad variety of meanings from the diabolical and the apotropaic to, believe it or not, that of a good luck charm.