St. Jerome introducing Charles V. into Paradise is the subject of a large fresco, by Luca Giordano, on the staircase of the Escurial.
St. Jerome conversing with two nuns, probably intended for St. Paula and St. Marcella.[267]
The sleep of St. Jerome. He is watched by two angels, one of whom, with his finger on his lip, commands silence.[268]
It is worth remarking, that in the old Venetian pictures St. Jerome does not wear the proper habit and hat of a cardinal, but an ample scarlet robe, part of which is thrown over his head as a hood (88).
The history of St. Jerome, in a series, is often found in the churches and convents of the Jeronymites, and generally consists of the following subjects, of which the fourth and sixth are often omitted:—
1. He is baptized. 2. He receives the cardinal’s hat from the Virgin. 3. He does penance in the desert, beating his breast with a stone. 4. He meets St. Augustine. 5. He is studying or writing in a cell. 6. He builds the convent at Bethlehem. 7. He heals the wounded lion. 8. He receives the Last Sacrament. 9. He dies in the presence of his disciples. 10. He is buried.
Considering that St. Jerome has ever been venerated as one of the great lights of the Church, it is singular that so few churches are dedicated to him. There is one at Rome, erected, according to tradition, on the very spot where stood the house of Santa Paula, where she entertained St. Jerome during his sojourn at Rome in 382. For the high altar of this church, Domenichino painted his masterpiece of the Communion of St. Jerome already described. The embarkation of Saint Paula, to follow her spiritual teacher St. Jerome to the Holy Land, is the subject of one of Claude’s most beautiful sea pieces, now in the collection of the Duke of Wellington; another picture of this subject, the figures as large as life, is in the Brera, by a clever Cremonese painter, Giuseppe Bottoni.