Christ the Magic Dragon
Herbert L. Kessler
Depictions of the caladrius in medieval bestiaries draw on accompanying texts that emphasize bird's diagnostic power, and, integrated with pictorial traditions brazen serpent and Christ Trampling Beasts, they (and others related works) transform natural history into spiritual commentary. Engaging choice reading image only as a representation physical world or bearer significance based faith, pictures thus confront viewers decision quite like one Israelites themselves faced desert, namely, whether to believe dissent. Applied serpentine cross, illustrations serve separate believers from heretics; important, their very duality (like Christ's) was magical, realizing process decoding double curative potential images.
Gesta