ABSTRACT
An Italian copper-gilt incense boat in the Victoria and Albert Museum, probably made in the Marches at the beginning of the fifteenth century, is unremarkable in all respects but one – the double representation of a bishop saint on one of the vessel’s twin lids.2 The original bishop (fig. 53) cannot be more precisely identified, but shortly after the boat’s manufacture he was covered by a copper plaque, specially made for the purpose, which was soldered on to the face of the valve and gilded to mask the alteration (fig. 54). This plaque also depicts a bishop saint, who differs from the first in several telling details – he holds an open book, wears a monastic cowl over his cope, and has a heavy leather belt around his waist.3 The cincture denotes the replacement prelate, hitherto unidentified, as St Augustine of Hippo, his episcopal regalia combined with the belted habit of the mendicant order of Augustinian Hermits or Austin Friars.4 The rationale for this curious and fairly crude pentimento is not immediately clear. The plaque could correct a goldsmith’s mistake, or stem from a need for iconographic clarification from the boat’s (Augustinian?) patron. But whatever the precise circumstances, the adaptation of the V&A navicula mirrors in microcosm the broader difficulties faced by the Hermits when portraying St Augustine as the putative founder of their order.5
