Caravaggio’s Saint Jerome – the Doctor of the Church as a weapon in the struggle against heretics

Saint Jerome, Caravaggio, Galleria Borghese

Saint Jerome, Caravaggio, Galleria Borghese

Whether it was a regular commission, or a gift from Caravaggio for his faithful patron who often rescued him from oppression is a point of contention for historians. However, there can be no doubt that the piece was crated as one of the last, if not the last painting, that the artist created in Rome prior to his escape. This time the matter was serious – he committed murder and had to assume that the punishment would be severe. He was deemed an outlaw and was sentenced to death.
Saint Jerome, Caravaggio, Galleria Borghese
Saint Jerome, fragment, Caravaggio, Galleria Borghese
Saint Jerome, fragment, Caravaggio, Galleria Borghese
Whether it was a regular commission, or a gift from Caravaggio for his faithful patron who often rescued him from oppression is a point of contention for historians. However, there can be no doubt that the piece was crated as one of the last, if not the last painting, that the artist created in Rome prior to his escape. This time the matter was serious – he committed murder and had to assume that the punishment would be severe. He was deemed an outlaw and was sentenced to death.
At the end of May 1606, under the cover of the night, Caravaggio was on his way to Naples, where the laws of the State of the Church meant nothing. He was never to return to Rome. In the city, he left a painting, which then became part of the collection of the aforementioned patron and a great admirer of his art – Cardinal Scipione Borghese. It depicts St. Jerome and is one of several that Caravaggio devoted to the ascetic who lived at the turn of the IV and V centuries. Based on the number of images of Jerome painted by other artists, it must be assumed that his depictions were in fashion. Why? That is a question we will address later. First, let us take a look at the painting itself.

We have just surprised Jerome in his empty cell in the monastery in Bethlehem, where he spent nearly thirty years of his life, mainly dealing with the translation of the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Latin (the so-called Vulgate) – hence the reason for the three books lying on the table. The saint himself emerges from a dark background – bent over some fragment he seems completely immersed in reading, while his hand searches around for an inkwell. Most likely he wants to note something down, as can be seen by the quill he holds in his hand. The light comes in from the left, strongly accentuating the bald skull of the saint, hiswrinkle-filled forehead, and his disheveled hair. His nude body covered only in sheets seems to point to the fact that rejecting all goods and comforts was a significant element of the life of Jerome. This ascetic, discarding the glamour of things temporal, most likely did not possess a red sheet. However, Caravaggio introduces it not only as a sign of distinction, which he desires to bestow upon his protagonist but also as a distinguishing feature of his nearly monochromatic composition. The second is the white of the bedsheets (or more appropriately a shroud) flowing down from the table which is a reminder that a man is born and dies. This is underlined by the skull (the attribute of the saint) lying on the books – a symbol of the passing of all that is earthly. The whole composition of the painting revolves around two skulls – the living one and the dead one, from among which the living one (Jerome's) will also soon be dead.

Just how exceptional Caravaggio's painting was, can be seen when comparing the compact, simple composition of his work with other previous works commemorating Jerome. They were especially frequently painted in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and they included a plethora of details, and at the same time attributes of the saint such as a wounded lion, a cardinal's hat, a skull books, desert, grotto (shack). The interpreter of the Bible was shown as a repenting hermit in solitude, or a humanist surrounded by books. Caravaggio left out most of these attributes "stripping" the saint from all anecdotes and created a composition focused on capturing the moment of the work of an intellectual deep in the world of thoughts. The fact that we are dealing with a saint is only marked by Caravaggio by a very thin halo.Rejecting the usual way of presenting Jerome until now was not only the idea of the ingenious painter but above all a new narrative that appeared in Catholic art after the Council of Trent (1563). This nearly twenty-year-long assembly of Catholic dignitaries convened to discuss how to combat Protestantism andprevent its further expansion. In the new guidelines regarding the arts, it was recommended to avoid details and attributes but rather concentrate on presenting feelings and the profound religious experience which would push the onlooker towards devotion and prayer or even imitation. This was a response to Protestant accusations ridiculing the Catholic throngs of saints with fable-like histories, including Jerome taking out a splinter from a lion’s paw. At the Council of Trent, the Vulgate was approved by the Roman Catholic Church as the only valid translation of the Bible. But even this was criticized by the Protestants pointing out the text's numerous omissions, but most of all convinced that it is only right to read the Bible in local (national) languages so that it would be understood by a large number of the faithful.



For Catholics Jerome was, however, above all, an exemplary saint - a symbol of the love of truth, the reliability of the translation of the Holy Bible, and his loyalty to the Roman Church represented by the pope (in his times it was Damasus). He proved it using his quill to combat all kinds of apostasies, which appeared in the Church even during his life. He was a defender of one of the foundations of the Catholic faith, which proclaimed that salvation is achieved through good deeds, and virtuous life, and not, as Protestants would want, explicitly through faith. Jerome's asceticism (mortification of the flesh, celibacy, rejecting temporal goods) was connected in the Catholic Church with a strong faith in the redemptive sense of physical suffering, but also a means of attaining sainthood here on Earth.And it was such a Jerome – absorbed in studying the Bible, which is a true, spiritual exercise, but also a way to understand the mystery of Christ and a path leading to God, that was presented by Caravaggio.

Saint Jerome, Caravaggio, oil on canvas, 112 x 157 cm, 1605–1606, Galleria Borghese