|
The painting shows St Augustine, in his bishop's robes, appearing to 40 pilgrims bound for Rome, some crippled and some blind, and pointing the way to his own tomb in Pavia with the promise of a cure. Tintoretto sets the scene in a dried-up river course. In the background of this bleak lunar landscape the façade of a church hovers as a vision of hope. Tintoretto painted the picture for the altar of the Porto Godi family in the chapel of St Augustine at San Michele in Vicenza (the church no longer stands). In the middle ground of the picture, below the church tower on the right, a portrait of the white-bearded donor in miniature can be seen.
|
