THE EVIL AT THE DRAGON'S FEET

Beneath Carpaccio's dragon lies a kind of Bosnian litter: half-devoured bodies . skulls . busy, slithering snakes. The painting St. George and the Dragon is a vision of evil perfectly at home in the late 20th century, even though the artist imagined it almost 500 years ago. It gleams like a premonition in the garage-dim Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni in Venice. What is missing from the picture in 1995, of course, is the St. George part -- the rescue: Evil impaled, Good's shining blond revenge.

It made some sense that Elie Wiesel chose Venice as the place to bring...

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