Saint Jerome Writing

Caravaggio painted this Saint Jerome Writing around 1606 for Cardinal Scipione Borghese, one of several works he created for this powerful patron. The elderly saint sits at a rough table, dipping his pen to translate the Bible into Latin (the Vulgate). A skull rests beside him as reminder of mortality.

The composition's stark simplicity focuses attention on Jerome's face and hands. Light falls dramatically from the upper left, typical of Caravaggio's tenebrism. Jerome wears only a red cloak, his body emaciated by desert asceticism. Caravaggio painted this while fleeing Rome after killing a man in a brawl. The painting reached Cardinal Borghese nonetheless. It hangs in the Borghese Gallery.