The cure of Innocentius of Carthage: the prayers of Saint Augustine of Hippo and others save Innocentius from painful surgery. Oil painting after Schelte Bolswert.

An event in Carthage in 388 AD described at length by Saint Augustine of Hippo in De civitate dei, book XXII, chapter 8, where he discusses the continuation of miracles into his own age. The sick man is Innocentius of Carthage, ex-advocate of the deputy prefecture of Carthage. He was being treated for several anal fistulas ("curabatur a medicis fistulas quas numerosas atque perplexas habuit in posteriore et ima corporis parte"). However, for reasons of propriety, the artist shows him instead with a bandaged leg which the surgeon is expecting to amputate with a saw. According to Courcelle (p. 51), this composition is the first to illustrate the episode

A man in bed, Innocentius of Carthage, has a bandaged leg, and a surgeon is sitting nearby, ready to amputate. In the centre, blessing Innocentius, is a tonsured friar identified by Courcelle as Saint Augustine of Hippo (though he does not act in this way in his own account). Beyond him is a group of hermits of Saint Augustine, kneeling in prayer. On the right, an old man "entre et lève la main en un geste de stupeur" (Courcelle): could he be the "marvellous Alexandrian surgeon" mentioned by Augustine as having been called in as a consultant? On the left a surgeon almost lets go of his amputation saw in surprise. In front of him are some cautery irons being heated (rather than sterilised, pace Courcelle), and on a table is an amputation knife: these are the "tremenda ferramenta" mentioned by Augustine

1 painting : oil on copper ; copper 69 x 85.7 cm

Select images of this work were taken by the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum: WT/D/1/20/1/65/92

Wellcome Collection 44998i

Jeanne Courcelle and Pierre Courcelle, Iconographie de Saint Augustin: les cycles du XVIe siècle et du XVIIe siècle, Paris 1972, pp. 45-61 and plates XXXII-LVII (esp. p. 51, "Augustin guérit Innocentius")

V. Nutton, 'Murders and miracles : lay attitudes to medicine in classical antiquity', in his Democedes to Harvey, London 1988, p. VII.35 (on Innocentius)

Rafael Lazcano (ed.), Iconografía agustiniana (Roma, 22-24 de noviembre de 2000): actos del congreso, Roma 2001, pp. 19 (paintings in the Prado from the convent of S. Felipe el Real de Madrid), 301 (paintings in the convents in Quito and Lima), 400 (paintings by Juan Ruiz Soriano formerly in the Augustinian convent in Seville), all after Bolswert's engravings

Courcelle suggest that Bolswert could have been the author of the designs (op. cit. p. 45). Possibly painted in Antwerp for export to Spain: many paintings exported from Antwerp to Spain were painted on large sheets of copper (as this one is), for ease of travel. Bolswert's engravings of episodes in the life of Saint Augustine (Iconographia magni patris Aurelii Augustini, 1624) served as the models for many paintings in Augustinian convents, in Madrid, Seville, Quito and Lima (Lazcano, loc. cit.), as well as for easel paintings such as this one

After: an engraving by Schelte Bolswert (1586-1659) for the Iconographia magni patris Aurelii Augustini ... S. à Bolswert sculpsit et excudit Antuerpiae anno MDCXXIV, Paris 1624, no. 6