Saint Jerome

Having retired to the Syrian desert for four years in order to do penance, Saint Jerome kneels before a crucifix, his body covered with self-inflicted wounds. In his hand he holds the stone with which he has been striking his chest. The anonymous illuminator of the miniature, the Master of the Getty Epistles, silhouetted Jerome's half-naked body against an area of dark green, isolating him from the distant countryside and reinforcing his self-imposed exile from civilization. Jerome's red cardinal's robe and hat hang from the broken branch of a tree. A lion, whom the saint befriended by removing a thorn from its paw, lies in the foreground smiling at the viewer.

The miniature introduces a preface, once thought to have been written by Jerome, to Saint Paul's Epistles.