[Illustration: 38 St. Michael (Mabuse, 1510)] Those representations in which St. Michael is not conqueror, but combatant, in which the moment is one of transition, are less frequent; it is then an _action_, not an _emblem_, and the composition is historical rather than symbolical. It is the strife with Lucifer; ‘when Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels, and the great dragon was cast out.’ (Rev. xii. 7.) In churches and chapels dedicated to St. Michael, or to ‘the Holy Angels,’ this appropriate subject often occurs; as in a famous fresco by Spinello d’Arezzo, at Arezzo.[75] In the middle of the composition, Michael, armed with sword and shield, is seen combating the dragon with seven heads, as described in the Apocalypse. Above and around are many angels also armed. At the top of the picture is seen an empty throne, the throne which Lucifer had ‘set in the north;’ below is seen Lucifer, falling with his angels over the parapet of heaven. (Isaiah xiv. 13.) The painter tasked his skill to render the transformation of the spirits of light into spirits of darkness as fearful and as hideous as possible; and, being a man of a nervous temperament, the continual dwelling on these horrors began at length to trouble his brain. He fancied that Lucifer appeared to him in a dream, demanding by what authority he had portrayed him under an aspect so revolting?—the painter awoke in horror, was seized with delirious fever, and so died. In his combat with the dragon, Michael is sometimes represented alone, and sometimes as assisted by the two other archangels, Gabriel and Raphael: as in the fresco by Signorelli, at Orvieto, where one of the angels, whom we may suppose to be Raphael, looks down on the falling demons with an air of melancholy, almost of pity. In a picture by Marco Oggione,[76] Michael has precipitated the demon into the gulf, and hovers above, while Raphael and Gabriel stand below on each side, looking on; all are clothed in voluminous loose white draperies, more like priests than warriors; but it is a fine picture.