Ancient Painting Of XVII - Master Of The French School

Old painting of the seventeenth century oil on canvas, a beautiful representation of Saint Augustine. Augustine of Hippo Aurelio Agostino of Ippona (in Latin: Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis, Tagaste, November 13, 354 - Hippo, August 28, 430) was a philosopher, bishop and theologian of Latin expression and Berber origin or, according to some , punic. Known as St. Augustine, he is a father, physician and saint of the Catholic Church, also known as Dr. Gratiae ("Doctor of Grace"). He was called "the greatest Christian thinker of the first millennium and certainly also one of the greatest geniuses of humanity in absolute". If the Confessions is his most famous work, it is noted for its importance, in the vast Augustinian production, The City of God. The life of Augustine was passed down in detail in the Confessions, his personal biography, in the Retractions, which describe the evolution of his thought, and in the Life of Augustine, written by his friend and disciple Possidius, who tells the story of Apostolate of St. Augustine, of Berber ethnicity, or Punic as he transmitted it himself, but a fundamentally Hellenistic and Roman culture, was born on 13 November 354 in Tagaste (currently Souk Ahras, Algeria, located about 70 km southeast of Hippo, today's Annaba), which at the time was a small free town of Proconsular Numidia, recently converted to donatism. He belonged to a middle class family, but not rich: his father, Patrick, a small landowner and member of the curiales (councilors) of the city, was pagan; of a benevolent soul, even if angry, impetuous and sometimes unfaithful to his wife Monica, the mother of Agostino precisely because of the influence of the latter in the long run will come to conversion, dying Christian to the 371 dC In fact Monica was a Christian, as well as being an intelligent and affectionate woman with a strong character. Agostino also had a brother, Navigio, who will be baptized at Cassiciaco in Brianza, and a sister whose name is unknown, but of whom we know that having been a widow, he directed a female monastery until his death.