The Vision of Saint Jerome

An elderly but muscular man with an impressive beard sits in a rocky landscape. Beside him is a pile of books, on top of which sits a skull wearing a cardinal’s hat. He leans on a second pile, and points to the text of an open volume resting on a rocky ledge. This is the fourth-century scholar and hermit Saint Jerome, who produced the standard Latin translation of the Bible known as the Vulgate.

Jerome was especially important during the Counter-Reformation, when the Catholic Church undertook a series of reforms in response to the Protestant Reformation. In 1546 the Council of Trent, a meeting of the Church’s ruling body, declared the Vulgate the official translation of the Bible. The angel flying down from the top left corner does not relate to a specific incident but shows that Jerome was divinely inspired.

This is the earliest surviving documented picture by Domenichino: it was recorded in the collection of Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini in 1603.

Text: © The National Gallery, London

Painting photographed in its frame by Google Arts & Culture, 2023.