Antonello de Messina, Saint Jerome in his Study, 1474,
oil on limewood panel, 45.7x36.2cm,
London, National Gallery
Source : National Gallery, London, via Wikicommons
Saint Jerome belongs to the "quartet" of Latin Fathers, with the title of Doctors of the Church.
He is credited with translating the Old Testament from Hebrew into Latin, giving rise to the Saint Jerome Vulgate.
Around 372, he left for the East, where he traveled through the desert of Chalcis before returning to the cities. In depictions of Saint Jerome, his attributes include the penitent hermit, the scholar bent over his books, the Nativity devotee and the man of the cloth.
He is often accompanied by a lion. These representations take up the figure of a Saint with exemplary functions (the ascetic and the doctor), as well as the symbolic places in his history, such as Bethlehem and Rome, the "holy cities" of the Incarnation and the Church. His representations during the Renaissance are those of a man of letters, a scholar, a humanist.
He is often depicted in his study with books, as in the following work:
Later, around the 16th century, the saint was depicted in two ways: either as a tormented penitent, or as a lavish cardinal.