How to Identify Saints in Catholic Art: A Guide to Patron Saint Symbols
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You are standing in a great Catholic church. Around you, in stone and mosaic and painted wood, saints look out from every surface. Some you recognize immediately. Others hold objects you cannot place — a wheel, a gridiron, a jar of ointment, a tower. A woman presents her own eyes on a plate.
What are you looking at?
You are looking at a language. One of the oldest visual languages in Western civilization — the system of attributes that allowed Catholic artists and their congregations to identify every saint without a single written label. Before widespread literacy, before printed texts, the attribute was how you knew who was who.
Once you learn to read it, every Catholic church becomes an open book.
What Is a Saint's Attribute?
An attribute is a symbolic object, animal, color, or mark consistently depicted with a particular saint. Most attributes come directly from the saint's life — the instrument of their martyrdom, an object associated with their ministry, or an event so famous it became their permanent visual signature. A few come from legends that grew up around them in the medieval period.
The system was largely standardized by the medieval Church and remains in use today. Learn the most important attributes, and you can identify the figures in a fifteenth-century altarpiece as easily as a modern holy card.
Here are the saints most commonly depicted in Catholic art, and the symbols that identify them.
St. Peter — Keys
The keys of the Kingdom, given by Christ Himself: "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 16:19). Peter almost always holds one or two keys — gold and silver, or simply large and unmistakable. As the first pope and the rock on which the Church was built, his attribute is one of the most recognizable in all of Christian art.
St. Paul — Sword and Book
The sword recalls Paul's martyrdom by beheading in Rome. The book — often the Epistles — represents his extraordinary literary legacy, the letters that shaped Christian theology for two thousand years. Where Peter holds keys, Paul holds a sword. Together they appear on the coat of arms of the Holy See.
St. Francis of Assisi — Birds, Stigmata, Tau Cross
Francis is among the most depicted saints in Catholic art and one of the easiest to identify. He wears the brown Franciscan habit with a knotted cord. He may carry the Tau cross — his personal symbol. He often appears with birds, recalling his famous sermon to them. And in many depictions he shows the stigmata — the five wounds of Christ miraculously imprinted on his body two years before his death.
St. Anthony of Padua — Lily and the Infant Jesus
Anthony is typically depicted holding a white lily (purity) and the child Jesus — recalling a vision in which Christ appeared to him as an infant. He is one of the most beloved saints in the Catholic tradition, venerated for his intercession in finding lost things, and one of the most immediately recognizable figures in popular Catholic art.
St. Joseph — Lily and Carpenter's Tools
The foster father of Jesus appears with a white lily, a carpenter's square or tools of his trade, and often the child Jesus beside him. In older art he is sometimes depicted as elderly — a medieval convention meant to emphasize Mary's virginity. In more recent art, he appears as the strong, capable craftsman the Gospels suggest.
St. Michael the Archangel — Sword and Scales
Michael appears as a warrior angel, armored and magnificent, either driving a sword through a dragon or serpent (Satan cast from heaven) or holding a set of scales (weighing souls at the Last Judgment). He is the patron of soldiers, police, and all who fight on behalf of the vulnerable.
St. Catherine of Alexandria — Wheel and Sword
Catherine was sentenced to death on a spiked breaking wheel — which miraculously shattered — and was ultimately martyred by the sword. The Catherine wheel, a spiked or notched wheel, is one of the most recognizable martyr's attributes in Western art. She is the patron of philosophers and scholars.
St. Sebastian — Arrows
Sebastian, a Roman soldier who converted to Christianity, was condemned to be shot with arrows — and survived, only to be martyred later by clubs. He is almost always depicted bound to a post or tree, pierced with arrows, and is one of the most painted figures in the entire history of Western art. He is the patron of athletes and those who face persecution.
St. Therese of Lisieux — Roses and Crucifix
The Little Flower appears in her Carmelite habit, holding roses — recalling her promise to "spend my heaven doing good on earth" and to let fall a shower of roses. She is among the most beloved saints of the modern era, her Little Way of spiritual childhood embraced by millions.
St. Lucy — Eyes on a Plate
Lucy's eyes appear on a plate because of a legend that her eyes were put out during her martyrdom — or, in another version, that she removed them herself to discourage a suitor. She is the patron of the blind and those with eye conditions, and her name means light. She is depicted throughout Italian and Scandinavian Catholic art and is particularly associated with her feast day on December 13.
Using Saint Symbols in Design
Understanding attributes makes you a better Catholic designer. When you place St. Peter's keys on a parish anniversary graphic, or St. Therese's roses on a memorial card, you are not decorating — you are speaking a language the Church has spoken for a thousand years.
Check out our Saint Clipart Collection HERE and build a beautiful library of images around the Catholic Saints