St Jerome and St John the Baptist

Saint Jerome, wearing his red cardinal’s hat, and Saint John the Baptist stand side by side on a grassy hillock. Saint John’s sturdy toes interrupt a carpet of wild flowers, including yellow dandelions, violets and strawberries. Saint Jerome who lived in the fourth century, was a cardinal and biblical scholar who translated the Bible from Greek to Latin. At his feet is a lion. It lifts its paw up to the saint and looks at him with an imploring expression. According to legend, when Jerome was living as a monk near Bethlehem he pulled a thorn from a lion’s foot; from that moment it was his companion and protector. In his left hand he holds a Bible, its weighty pages curling over at the top edge. It is open at the first page of the Old Testament which describes the creation of the world. In his right hand he holds a model of a church which may represent Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. This picture and A Pope (Saint Gregory?) and Saint Matthias formed part of an altarpiece made for the canon’s choir of Santa Maria Maggiore. Saint Jerome was an important saint for the church: he had been baptised by its founder, Saint Liberius, and his relics had been moved there in the thirteenth century. There was an altar dedicated to him, and he was also shown in a mosaic in the apse at the eastern end of the church. John the Baptist wears a pink cloak over a camel-hair tunic which, according to the Bible, he wore when he was preaching in the wilderness about Christ’s ministry and baptising people in the river Jordan (Matthew 3: 4). He carries a scroll beginning with the words he spoke about Christ: Ecce Agnus Dei (‘Behold the Lamb of God’). He referred to Christ as a lamb because he was sacrificed as lambs were, to atone for sin. He emphasises this by pointing at the cross he carries, a reference to the Crucifixion. John the Baptist is also represented in a mosaic in the apse. He too was an important figure for the church; the altar of the canon’s choir was dedicated to him.