Image of St. Thomas Aquinas, anyone?

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Contrabass101

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Hi,

I’ve been reading a bit from the Summa, and a book about Thomas Aquinas (Chesterton’s), and I have become quite impressed with the man.

Now, I’m the type of person that likes to be able to have a face to relate my thoughts to, so I did a google for “St. Thomas Aquinas”, yet there are a number of paintings that are somewhat different, and I was just wondering if anybody know of any “authentic” images og the Angelic Doctor…

I like this one: irc.na.cnr.it/pub/CI/IMAGES/STOMMASO.JPG

But I guess its from his younger years, if authentic at all…

Anyone wanna help me out with my strange problem?
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It is highly unlikely that you will find any portrait of St. Thomas Aquinas. Such things were not done in the thirteenth century in western Europe - at least insofar as illuminated manuscripts are concerned. The biggest thirteenth century artist of note is Giotto and most of his best works are done in the early fourtheenth century. That’s one factor. Giotto may have spoken to folks who knew St. Francis but St. Francis was long gone when Giotto did his painting.

The second factor is that St. Thomas was not exactly endeared to his contemporaries while he was alive. It was only after his death that his value was recognized.

We can look at portraits of St. Thomas More and say, yep, that’s him but St. Thomas Aquinas died when portraiture was like this:

http://cache.eb.com/eb/image?id=83822&rendTypeId=4

This is a scene showing the martyrdom of St. Thomas a’ Becket around 1220. It’s way too late to be a portrait and this is pretty much what you’ld expect to find were there an illumination of St. Thomas Aquinas. I can’t find one.
 
Okay…

I’ll just assume he looks like the young bloke with the dove, then.

Thanks for the answer, anyway 🙂
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