Fountain of Saint George the Dragon Slayer

One of the most significant Baroque buildings in the Bratislava city centre, the former Primate's Palace, leads from the entrance hall to an inner square courtyard, the centre of which is occupied by the Saint George Fountain. Its central figure is the Baroque sculpture group depicting the famous knight. Saint George's fight with the dragon symbolises the Catholic Church's fight against the Reformation. ; The work was originally the decoration of the ornamental garden of the Esztergom archbishops in Bratislava. The garden, which has a European reputation, was founded and expanded by the archbishops who were forced out of Esztergom, which was occupied by the Turks, and who therefore mostly stayed in Bratislava and Nagyszombat, especially by the Archbishop of Esztergom, Ferenc Forgách, in the first years of the 17th century. The former garden - which is now completely built-up, to the point that its former location can only be roughly determined - was located somewhere on the side of Saint George's Hill in Bratislava, on an area of about 30 hectares. The garden, which consisted of fruit trees, flowers and vegetables, and was divided by spectacular walkways, was also decorated with buildings and statues. The garden was truly world-famous thanks to the scholar Jesuit János Lippai (1606-1666), who - as one of the first Hungarian-language horticultural works - wrote a description of the flower, vegetable and fruit garden of the "Posoni kert" in three volumes and the gardening tasks for its year-round care. ; One of the works decorating the garden was the statue depicting the knight Saint George according to traditional iconography. A male figure, slightly smaller than life-size, is depicted in a dynamic composition, sitting on a prancing horse, stabbing the dragon coiled around his horse's leg with his lance. ; The work was moved to the courtyard of the Primate's Palace after the closure of the Bratislava Archbishop's Garden.