São Julião Hospitaleiro

For something like 500 years, no one knew this was here. It sat under coats of whitewash in the church of Sant'Agostino, in Piero della Francesca's home town of Sansepolcro, until workmen uncovered it in 1954. What survived is only a fragment: a fair-haired young man against a green niche, painted around 1454. Detaching the plaster from the wall cost the rest, and his legs, hands and one shoulder were lost in the move. For a while no one was even sure who he was, until scholars settled on Julian, the saint who in the old story killed his own parents by a terrible mistake and then built hospitals for the poor in penance.