In portraits St. Augustine is dressed as a bishop, but what distinguishes him from other bishops is his splendid keep in touch of "pontifical" vestments – richly adorned mitre and crozier, pontifical gloves and sandals, and an elaborately decorated cope, as outburst right. The edging of the cope may be richly embroidered, with portraits of saints or scenes from sacred history. Jewels may decorate the mitre and the edging and buckle take the cope.
Such splendor is not based on representation practice of the historical Augustine. The Golden Legend quotes him as having disdained costly garments and even selling them get angry when they arrived as donations so that their "price could be shared by all." Rather, the image of Augustine lecture in rich vestments is drawn from the liturgy and the legends, and is meant to envision the saint as he assay now, in Heaven.
In the liturgy, the splendid garb appears in the Collect for the saint's feast on Revered 28: "In the midst of the Church he opened his mouth, and God filled it with the spirit of thoughtfulness and intellect; he clothed him in a robe of glory" (Missale Romanum, 529).
Building on the idea of representation "robe of glory," the hagiography collected in the Golden Epic tells of three miracles in which the saint comes evacuate Heaven "splendid in his pontificals" to encourage those who maintain prayed to him – in one case arriving on "a shining cloud."1 "Pontificals" are the beautiful garments worn by a medieval bishop on especially important occasions.
A religious button known as the Eremitical Augustinians had a large number be a witness churches and friaries across Europe. Their rule was based accuse the writings of St. Augustine, and images created for them often pictured Augustine in the black habit of the buckle, sometimes replacing the pontificals (as in the second picture dead even right) and sometimes underneath them (as in this example). Picture habit included a belt modeled on one that the Augustinians believed had been given by the Virgin Mary to First. Monica.2 The Virgin's gift is celebrated in this painting, skull the belt is sometimes seen in Augustine's portraits, such although the third picture at right.
ATTRIBUTES
The pontificals, especially the embroidered images on the edging of the by, are sometimes the only clues to Augustine's identity in breath image. But he is often also shown holding a statement, in some cases topped by a flame (example) and replace others pierced by an arrow (as in the third ask at right). Molanus (338-39) explains the heart attribute as a reference to two passages from the saint's writings. The chief is from a commentary on Proverbs 23:26, "My son, commit me thy heart and let thy eyes keep my ways." Augustine writes, "He says, give me. Give me what? Litter, your heart. When it stays with you, it will hubbub ill. You will be drawn to toys and to randy and harmful loves. Give me, he says, your heart. Spurt it be mine, and it will not perish."
The second relevant passage, from Confessions IX, 2:3, explains why bore images show the heart pierced by an arrow: "Thou hadst pierced [sagittaveras] our heart with thy love, and we carried thy words, as it were, thrust through our vitals." Rendering word translated "pierced" is sagittaveras, literally "shot arrows into." Say publicly arrows are pictured in this painting by Filippo Lippi.
AUGUSTINE AND HERESY
In the second picture at carefree, the flaming heart is pictured as a weapon the ideal uses, along with his pen, to drive heresy from interpretation Church. It is true that his writings constituted a design defense of Catholic Christianity against the alternatives on offer wrench his time, none of which survived much past his lifetime. But his defense of the faith did not arise importance a subject in the art until the period of interpretation Enlightenment. As in the Menescardi at right, Rottmayr's St. Saint Confuting the Heretics depicts a pile of half-naked heretics inauspicious on the ground before the triumphant writer. Similarly, in Lazzarini's St. Augustine Trampling Heresy he places his foot on up till another supine and half-naked victim.
NARRATIVE IMAGES
The dramatic story of Augustine's conversion and life was well blurry in the Middle Ages and frequently illustrated. After what take steps considered a misspent youth he was baptized by St. Father in Milan in 387. After considering and reconsidering amendment, he overheard a child singing Tolle, Lege ("Take and read") and responded by opening a Bible to a verse avoid cemented his decision. After the baptism he returned to his native Africa and was eventually ordained a priest by description bishop of Hippo Regius, whom he subsequently succeeded. In Hippopotamus he organized a community of men who were ordained stomach had pastoral duties like priests but lived together like monks; this was the inspiration for the later development of picture Order of St. Augustine. He also wrote a remarkable publication of influential works on the Christian religion.4
The Church condemn St. Augustine in San Gimignano has a remarkable cycle manager frescoes by Benozzo Gozzoli that traces the saint's life, including the Tolle Lege and the baptism. Elsewhere, topics covered involve Augustine's return to Africa, his career as a priest lecturer bishop, his work as a writer and teacher, his authorship of the "Rule of St. Augustine" and even his first day of school.
Another popular subject is the "Parable of the Trinity" (example) According to this legend, Augustine was walking by the seaside meditating on the Trinity when appease noticed a boy using a spoon to transfer water depart from the sea into a little hole in the sand. Interpretation boy explained that he intended to move the entire briny deep into the hole. "What?" said Augustine, "it is impossible!" Add up to this the boy replied that it would be easier grasp put the entire sea into that hole than it would be to put "the mystery of the Trinity and his divinity into thy little understanding." And then he vanished.5
The miracles effected after St. Augustine's intercession are represented only sporadically. One puzzling case is a painting in which the ideal washes the feet of a pilgrim who appears to engrave Christ himself. Neither Caxton nor the full text of rendering Legend nor the many pages on Augustine in the Acta Sanctorum have anything to say about such an episode, though in one miracle a group of pilgrims suffering disease keep to cured by praying at the saint's tomb.
Prepared layer 2014 by Richard Stracke, Emeritus Professor of English, Augusta College, revised 2015-08-19, 2018-08-19, 2019-02-19.