Italian school, first half of the 17th century

Italian school, first half of the 17th century.
"Penitent Saint Jerome".
Oil on canvas. Re-drawn.
Leaps and restorations.
Measurements: 132 x 95 cm.
In this painting ascribed to the Italian Baroque, St. Jerome is represented in the foreground taking a skull in his hands and opening in front of him, in a random page, a volume of the Gospels. Both attributes are symbolically interpreted as a reflection on the vanity of earthly goods and the fleeting nature of existence (the Vanitas theme), as well as the saint's role as the first translator of the Bible. The wiry features of the face are chiselled with expressive chiaroscuro. The intense contrasts of light, rooted in the Caravaggist tradition, lend a supernatural quality to the landscape of cobalt shades in which the saint is depicted. The long beard sparkles in subtle golden locks, and the bronze tone is prolonged in the vivid flesh tones. The half-open lips and the folds of the forehead concentrate a highly emotive image, characteristic of 17th-century devotional paintings.
One of the four great Doctors of the Latin Church, Saint Jerome was born near Aquileia (Italy) in 347. Trained in Rome, he was an accomplished rhetorician and polyglot. Baptised at the age of nineteen, between 375 and 378 he withdrew to the Syrian desert to lead an anchorite's life. He returned to Rome in 382 and became a collaborator of Pope Damasus. One of the most frequent representations of this saint is his penance in the desert. His attributes are the stone he uses to beat his chest and the skull on which he meditates. Also the cardinal's cape (or a red mantle), although he was never a cardinal, and the tamed lion. The latter comes from a story in the "Golden Legend", where it is narrated that one day, when he was explaining the Bible to the monks in his convent, he saw a lion limping towards him. He removed the thorn from its paw, and from then on kept it in his service, instructing it to look after his donkey while it grazed. Some merchants stole the donkey, and the lion recovered it, returning it to the saint without hurting the animal.