Saint Augustine in His Study

Saint Augustine, Bishop of Hippo and Doctor of the Roman Church, is intently writing in the privacy of his study. At his feet, the quill pens and crumpled papers imply the difficulty of translating divine inspiration into words. The classical architecture features a tondo showing the Madonna and Child, a reference to the saint’s Marian writings, alongside busts of Roman emperors that allude to the era in which he lived between the 4th and 5th centuries.