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Vision at Ostia

One of the most powerful scenes in Confessions is the mystical experience shared by St. Augustine and St. Monica at Ostia, the ancient port city of Rome. While Augustine and his mother were looking out of a window, they experienced a vision during which they transcended worldly things and glimpsed the divine "Wisdom through whom all these things are made" (9.10.24). The artist has depicted the window just above Monica's head. It is also interesting to compare this image with the Gozzoli fresco of the same incident. The fresco makes the death of Monica the center of the scene, and the vision is only hinted at in the upper left hand corner (where we see Augustine and Monica in a window). In the St. Thomas of Villanova Church, the artist devotes an entire window to this moment.