Bartolomeo Montagna “Saint Jerome” Poldi Pezzoli Museum in Milan in Italy

Saint Jerome

Bartolomeo Montagna (1450-1523) “Saint Jerome”

Painting - Tempera on Wood (112.3 x 50 cm) 1482

It is assumed that this painting by Bartolomeo Montagna, representing Saint Jerome and the one representing Saint Paul, was part of a polyptych where the two saints were separated by a Madonna and Child resting on a similar rocky plane.

Saint Jerome (343-420), born in Veneto and became a priest at the age of 29, was one of the four great doctors of the Latin Church.

Sick with a high fever, he felt he was dying and thought he was dead when an angel woke him up. He was brought before the Lord, who asked whether he was a Christian or a Ciceronian.

He answered the Lord that he was a Christian, but he was accused of lying and was whipped by angels.

It seems that Saint Jerome relived this scene in part every day and that he heard the Last Judgment Buckle and the angels who said, “Get up the dead! Come to the judgment! ”.

Saint Jerome Hence, the “Surgite mortui, venite ad judicium” can be read on the book he carries in some of his performances.

Jerome then became a hermit in the Holy Land before returning to Rome, where he became secretary to Pope Damasus I for three years.

After serving as secretary to the pope, he returned to the Holy Land, Bethlehem, where he created a community of hermits with the help of monks and Roman patricians who financed this project.

Among them was Saint Paula Romaine (347-404).

Saint Jerome In Bethlehem, Saint Jerome wrote the Vulgate, the Latin translation of the Bible.

His work was officially recognized in the 16th century when his Vulgate became the official version of the Catholic Bible.

He also wrote the “Life” of Saint Paul of Thebes.

Bartolomeo Montagna represented Saint Jerome as a hermit, as a penitent, holding the stone with which he hit and bruised his chest to resist the temptations and desires aroused by his memories of the young girls he had known in Rome.

The saint bends his knees by pressing them on the sharp edge of the stone, prays and suffers before a crucifix linked to an oak trunk, a symbol of salvation, while a puddle of blood spills on the ground.

Saint Jerome