Lorenzo Costa St. Jerome in the Wilderness, ca. 1520-1525 Oil on panel: 23 1/4 x 18 inches One of the four Latin Church Fathers, St. Jerome (342-420 A.D.) retired to the desert for four years to study Hebrew with, as he wrote, “only the scorpions and wild beasts for company.” Images of the penitent saint alone in the open country became a popular subject in Venetian art, with notable examples by Giovanni Bellini and Cima da Conegliano. This affecting work, with its lyrical landscape inspired ultimately by the prints of Albrecht Dürer, dates from Lorenzo Costa’s last years, when he succeeded Mantegna as court painter to the Gonzaga court at Mantua. |