While doing penance in the desert, St. Jerome was sometimes haunted by temptations, as well as amazed by terrors.
4. Domenichino, in one of the frescoes in St. Onofrio, represents the particular kind of temptation by which the saint was in imagination assailed: while he is fervently praying and beating his breast, a circle of beautiful nymphs, seen in the background, weave a graceful dance. Vasari has had the bad taste to give us a penitent St. Jerome with Venus and Cupids in the background: one arch little Cupid takes aim at him;—an offensive instance of the extent to which, in the sixteenth century, classical ideas had mingled with and depraved Christian Art.[263]
5. Guido. ‘St. Jerome translating the Scriptures while an angel dictates:’ life size and very fine (except the angel, who is weak, and reminds one of a water-nymph[264]); in his pale manner.
6. Domenichino. ‘St. Jerome is flagellated by an angel for preferring Cicero to the Hebrew writings:’ also in the St. Onofrio. The Cicero, torn from his hand, lies at his feet. Here the saint is a young man, and the whole scene is represented as a vision.
7. But St. Jerome was comforted by visions of glory, as well as haunted by terrors and temptations. In the picture by Parmigiano, in our National Gallery, St. Jerome is sleeping in the background, while St. John the Baptist points upwards to a celestial vision of the Virgin and Child, seen in the opening heavens above: the upper part of this picture is beautiful, and full of dignity; but the saint is lying stretched on the earth in an attitude so uneasy and distorted, that it would seem as if he were condemned to do penance even in his sleep; and the St. John has always appeared to me mannered and theatrical.
87 St. Jerome and the Lion (Coll’ Antonio da Fiore) Naples
8. The story of the lion is often represented. St. Jerome is seated in his cell, attired in the monk’s habit and cowl; the lion approaches, and lays his paw upon his knee; a cardinal’s hat and books are lying near him; and, to express the self-denial of the saint, a mouse is peeping into an empty cup (87).[265]