Trittico di Sant'Agostino

Around 1328 the Augustinian friars of Siena had a problem: their local holy man, Agostino Novello, had been dead nearly 20 years and they wanted him made a saint. To keep his cult alive they commissioned Simone Martini for this altarpiece, and its side panels are startling. Instead of ancient scripture they show miracles set in the Siena of Martini's own day, a child mauled by a wolf, a boy tumbling from a wooden balcony, a knight thrown from his horse into a ravine, each time the blessed Agostino swooping down to save them. The houses are recognisable Sienese buildings with their jutting upper storeys and iron brackets. In the centre Agostino stands in his black friar's habit, holding the Order's rulebook while an angel leans in to whisper at his ear. Martini had just come back from painting frescoes in Assisi and in the Palazzo Pubblico here in Siena.