Description
Simone Martini places the Augustinian blessed Agostino Novello at the centre of an altarpiece and surrounds him with four miracles attributed to him after his death. They depict the rescue of a child attacked by a wolf, another child falling from a balcony, a horseman saved from an accident and an infant falling from a cradle. Siena and its surrounding landscape appear with unusual immediacy for painting of this period. Executed in tempera on wood during the 1320s, the work came from the church of Sant’Agostino in Siena and is now kept at the city’s Pinacoteca Nazionale.
Viewers can follow the altarpiece in an order quite different from reading a book. They first recognise the holy man as a spiritual authority and then discover the children and adults in urgent need of help.






