The Penitent St Jerome

St Jerome (c.347-420) is depicted as an elderly penitent meditating on Christ’s Passion, symbolised by the cross. A shaft of light mercilessly highlights his desiccated flesh and greying beard, as he listens to the trumpet announcing the Day of Judgment. Loving skill was expended on the memento mori of a skull and the foreshortened volumes with their worn bindings. These refer to Jerome’s scholarl…