Gozzoli's Augustine

"For other people, even those of whom we have so often dreamed that they have become nothing more than a picture, a figure by Benozzo Gozzoli standing out upon a background of verdure, as to whom we were prepard to believe that the only variations depended upon the point of view from which we looked at them, their distance from us, the effect of light and shade, these people, while they change in relation to ourself, change also in themselves, and there had been an enrichment, a solidification and an increase of volume in the figure once so simply outlined against the sea."
Proust, La Prissonière trans. Scott-Moncrieff (ML ed. p. 84)

In 1465, Benozzo Gozzoli completed a cycle of 17 scenes from the life of Augustine which surround the choir of the Church of Saint Augustine in the now-tourist-ridden hilltown of San Gimignano (famous for its towers -- at a distance against the sky the town looks offers a New York skyline until you realize the difference in scale). Those frescoes survive in a remarkable state of preservation. Here is a sampling: