Bono da Ferrara, 'Saint Jerome in a Landscape', about 1440

A barefoot and bearded saint sits in a rocky landscape, prayer beads in hand. Discarded behind him is a red cardinal’s hat and he wears a cardinal’s ermine cape over his rough wool habit. This is Saint Jerome, monk, hermit and translator of the Bible.

One of the so-called Doctors of the Church, Jerome was a popular saint in the Middle Ages, especially with religious orders. He was seen as a role model for living an ascetic life – he renounced worldly riches and pleasure – and for the scholarly study of the Bible. Widely travelled and well educated, Jerome was deeply affected by a dream in which God accused him of loving classical literature more than scripture. He went to live in the desert of Chalcis in Syria, gave up the classics he knew and loved, and learnt Hebrew to study the Bible in its original language. He later went to Rome and became secretary to the Pope – that’s why he’s often shown with the red robes and hat of a cardinal, as in Crivelli’s Saint Jerome, even though the office did not exist in his lifetime – and started work on what was to become the standard Latin text of the Bible.

Here he seems to have been up all night working: books, scrolls and ink pots are piled on a ledge and on the floor behind him, and the hills in the distance are flooded with the golden light of dawn. This light is perhaps also a metaphor. It glints on the spire and pinnacles of a small church nestled in the valley, and Jerome was said to have illuminated the Church with his teachings. The wooded and rocky landscape is presumably the wilderness in which he spent some years and where, according to legend, he pulled a thorn out of a lion’s paw. The lion remained his faithful companion till his death; here it curls at his feet like a dog, an endearing smile on its face.

We don't know who this painting was for, though it is among the earliest of a type of image which subsequently became very popular, especially in north-east Italy. The painting was in Ferrara in the 1830s, and the cult of Saint Jerome was encouraged by the humanists at the court of Ferrara in the fifteenth century. Perhaps it was made for a Ferrarese aristocrat or churchman and remained there ever since it was made.

Bono da Ferrara was a pupil of Pisanello, as stated on the scroll in the bottom right corner. It was from Pisanello that he got his interest in animals – compare the grazing doe on the rocky height with the does and stags in The Vision of Saint Eustace – and the trees and rocky ground are reminiscent of The Virgin and Child with Saints Anthony Abbot and George. It’s possible that this painting is a version of a lost Pisanello, but Bono applied his paint in a less refined way than his master, and his interest in foreshortening – seen especially in the plate-like halo – recalls that of his contemporary Carlo Crivelli.