Saint Jerome

This is one of four paintings made to decorate a pair of shutters. Each of the shutters was painted with a saint on the outside and an angel on the inside. The central image they would once have flanked and protected is now missing, but it is likely to have represented the Virgin Mary crowned in the heavens. We know this from the inscription included on the parapet beneath the angels, which translates from Latin as: ‘Hail Queen of the Heavens.’This panel of Saint Jerome is the most damaged of the four paintings and has been extensively restored. Saint Jerome was a fourth-century priest, theologian and historian who lived in Rome, Gaul and Asia Minor. He is known for translating most of the Bible from Greek into Latin, known as the Vulgate. He also translated the Old Testament from Hebrew into Latin and wrote commentaries on the Gospels.Here Saint Jerome is depicted as one of the four Latin Doctors of the Church. His red habit and hat resemble those of a cardinal, which is anachronistic as cardinals did not exist during Jerome’s lifetime. Sometimes he is shown in the wilderness or accompanied by a lion, refering to the period he spent as a hermit in the Syrian desert.Here Saint Jerome holds the Bible in his right hand and turns the pages with the gloved fingers of his left. It is more usual to hold a book in the left hand and turn the pages with the right (assuming you are right-handed). It is likely that the figure of Jerome was painted by Moretto in reverse from a pose he invented for a polyptych for S. Maria degli Angeli at Gardone Valtrompia (now in the Brera, Milan). The figures seem to be the same size, so it is possible that the same cartoon was used, and the figure was reversed so as to face left on the right-hand shutter.