UNKNOWN MASTER, Italian
(active in 1350-1370 in Lombardy)

Tomb of St Augustine

1350-62
Marble
San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro, Pavia

The Arca di Sant'Agostino, raised above the crypt, is in the centre of the presbytery in the Basilica of San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro. This masterpiece of Lombard sculpture of the fourteenth century is adorned with 95 statues and 50 bas-reliefs. The work was commissioned by Bonifacio Bottigella from Pavia, Prior of the Augustinians.

Besides Giovanni di Balduccio's Arca di San Pietro Martire in Sant'Eustorgio, Milan, the Arca di Sant'Agostino is the second of the great Lombard shrines. It was begun after 1350, and the lower part at least was completed by 1362. Where the shrine of St Peter Martyr is preponderantly Tuscan, the shrine of St Augustine is preponderantly Milanese. It is supported not on free-standing caryatides, but on a solid base, in which reliefs of Virtues (inspired by the caryatides in Sant'Eustorgio) are separated from each other by pairs of saints. The narrative scenes are transferred from the sarcophagus to the upper part of the monument, and the centre of the tomb is a recumbent effigy under an arcade, lying among small standing figures. The supports of the arcade are also entrusted with tiny statuettes.

According to Pope-Hennessy, the design is heavy and overfilled with ornament, but in its Lombard context it is a conspicuously distinguished work, and though the carving is unequal, the design of the whole monument and the execution of the lower parts may well be the artistic testament of Giovanni di Balduccio.