Saint Jerome in Prayer

Barocci Federico

(Urbino c. 1535 - 1612)

The work is signed ‘Fed. Barocivs / Urb.as ping.at’ in the lower left-hand corner; it was certainly executed by 1600, as a print based on it dates to that year. Depicting Saint Jerome before a crucifix in a nocturnal setting, the painting was first documented in connection with the Borghese Collection in 1693. 

Object details

Commentary

The painting contains the artist’s signature in the lower left-hand corner – ‘FED. BAROCIVS / URB.as PING.at’ – although the inscription does not indicate the year of its execution. Nonetheless, from an engraving made of the painting by Francesco Villamena, we know that the terminus ante quem for our canvas is 1600, the year of the execution of the former. Scholars in fact date the work to the last years of the 16th century (Emiliani 1975, p. 185, and 2008, p. 168; Herrmann Fiore 2000, p. 79; Stefani 2000, p. 388; Delieuvin 2013, p. 350).

In spite of the existence of the signature and the popularity of the work through prints, the canvas does not appear in the oldest Borghese inventories. It was first mentioned in that of 1693, in which it seems to be referred to in two entries. The first reads, ‘a painting of 4 spans on canvas with St Jerome with Christ on the cross [...] by Barocci’; the second describes ‘a painting of Saint Jerome who pounds his chest, with a gilded frame, 4 by 3 [...] by Barocci’. Prior to this inventory, the work may be indicated in an entry of that of Cardinal Scipione Borghese which lists a canvas with the same subject. If this were the case, then the work already formed part of the collection at an early date; yet the absence of the name of the painter in the description prevents us from asserting this with certainty (for the older inventory, see S. Corradini, ‘Un antico inventario della quadreria Borghese’, in Bernini scultore. La nascita del barocco in Casa Borghese, exhibition catalogue (Rome, Galleria Borghese, 1998), eds. A. Coliva, S. Schütze and A. Campitelli, Rome 1998, pp. 449-456; for the possible dating of the inventory, see S. Pierguidi, ‘“In materia totale di pitture si rivolsero al singolar Museo Borghesiano”. La quadreria Borghese tra il palazzo di Ripetta e la villa Pinciana’, Journal of the History of Collections, XXVI, 2014, 2, pp. 161-170).

The work reappears in the inventories of 1700 and 1790 as well as in the 1833 Inventario Fidecommissario, in each case with an attribution to Barocci.

The work was perhaps executed for the purpose of private worship, given that this subject was widely popular during the Renaissance and always in great demand. The figure of the desert hermit Saint Jerome was connected to the concepts of penitence, sacrifice and meditation; in addition, in his capacity as a Church Father and author of the Vulgate Jerome represented the perfect model of the intellectual dedicated to the study of the Holy Scripture. These elements are clearly depicted in Barocci’s work: the saint appears to have just laid down his book, visible below his left arm, in order to devote himself to a moment of profound contemplation of the crucifix as well as to penitence, as is indicated by the rock in his hand with which he is about to beat his chest. Furthermore, the architectural structure in the background is perhaps intended to evoke a monastery; in this case it would constitute another allusion to an  important role played by the saint, namely his efforts in developing monasticism (Delieuvin, 2013).

The scene is set at night, illuminated only by a slight glow of the moon, which is almost completely hidden by a mountain in the dark landscape that opens in the distance, and by a lantern which lights Jerome’s grotto. The saint’s typical attributes are visible on the right: the skull and the hourglass, symbols of death and the futility of earthly existence.

The only hint of colour in the painting is provided by the faded red of Jerome’s mantle, which stands out against the dark tones of the grotto, and of the cardinal’s hat which can be glimpsed on the right side of the scene.

Some critics (Schmarsow 1909, p. 19; Di Pietro 1913, p. 78) have maintained that the model used for the figure of the saint was most likely that of Anchises in the Flight of Aeneas from Troy, now lost, which Barocci painted for the Habsburg Emperor Rudolf II in the 1580s and of which a second autograph version is held by the Galleria (inv. no. 68). Yet other scholars have contested this view: Harald Olsen (1962, p. 196) argued that the chronological distance between the first version of the Aeneas and the Saint Jerome was too great to posit a connection. On the other hand, the thesis was accepted by Andrea Emiliani (1975, p. 185, and 2008, p. 168; see also Della Pergola, 1959, pp. 69-70, n. 100; Delieuvin, 2013), who believed that Barocci repeatedly used the same models which he fine-tuned in drawings. Both the features and inclination of Jerome’s head in fact reappear in the figure of the bishop in the later Lamentation of Christ, which the artist left unfinished at the time of his death (Biblioteca Comunale dell’Archiginnasio, Bologna).

Several preparatory studies connected to the canvas are held at the Department of Prints and Drawings of the Uffizi (on these, see Emiliani 2008, pp. 170-171).

Pier Ludovico Puddu