One of the symbols that Pope Leo has chosen for his coat of arms is a flaming heart on a book. This is an emblem of the Order of St. Augustine, of which Pope Leo served as Prior General. The figure symbolically evokes Saint Augustine’s words in the Confessions: ‘Sagittaveras tu cor meum charitate tua’ (“You pierced my heart with your love”). From the 16th century on, the symbol has appeared in the Augustinian coat of arms and is typically accompanied by the open book, which symbolizes the Word of God that transforms every human heart, as it did Augustine’s.
In this representation by Murillo painted in 1664 for the Convento de San Agustino in Seville, we see Augustine’s heart quite literally on fire, pierced by an arrow from the hand of the Christ child. The heart appears as a gateway for the soft celestial light surrounding the infant and child into the earthly gloom of the saints black robes.
🎨 Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617 – 1682), San Agustín con la Virgen y el Niño (1664). Museo de Bellas Artes de Sevilla.
The Arts of Golden Age Spain and the Hispanic World 